Sep 25 2026: Issue 22

📣 React Native 0.88.0-rc.2 raises the minimum Metro version to 0.87.1, so upgraded projects resolve the same Metro as freshly created ones. It also reverts the RCTArrayBuffer codegen change, bringing back NSMutableData * for ObjC TurboModule methods, because 0.88 is meant to be a non-breaking release.

📣 Xcode 27.2 beta: JSON project format adds a new .xcproj JSON format that is readable, merge-friendly and easy for coding agents to edit. It's already the default for new projects, so hopefully no more project.pbxproj merge conflicts.

📣 RFC: Secondary JavaScript runtimes in React Native proposes a first-class C++ API for spinning up extra Hermes runtimes. The Worklets maintainer argues it would make libraries like Reanimated more robust and fix debugging, inspector, and HMR pain points.

📣 Apex by Callstack is an upcoming coding model built specifically for React Native. It's based on Gemma 4 and fine-tuned on curated RN ecosystem data, with launch coming soon.

📣 Build for iPhone Duo with new resources: Apple released Figma and Sketch design kits for iPhone Duo, worldwide workshops on adapting to the new screen sizes, and the Xcode 27.1 beta.

📣 Land your apps on Googlebook with adaptive development: Google's new Android laptop category rewards adaptive apps. Optimized apps are highlighted when users set up a Googlebook from their phone, and they get desktop badging on Google Play.

📣 Bring your Android game to the car screen: the games category for Android Auto and Android Automotive OS is now GA. You can publish parked-only games to the open testing and production tracks on Google Play.

📣 Expo SDK 58 Beta is built for iOS 27 and ships with the React Native 0.88 RC. It also brings Expo Modules 2.0 in beta, home screen widgets on Android, and "Noxcturnal", an experimental Rust-based Metro transformer. The beta runs for three to four weeks.

📦 react-native-reanimated v4.7.0 switches layout animations to the new engine by default and adds animated backgroundImage and more CSS transitions on Android. If something breaks, USE_LEGACY_LAYOUT_ANIMATIONS_PROXY brings back the old engine, though you lose shared element transitions while it's on.

📦 react-native-worklets v0.13.0 gives Bundle Mode runtimes a full networking module: fetch, XMLHttpRequest, Blob, FormData, AbortController and more. It's controlled by the new enableNetworking option. The release also ports the Babel plugin to OXC and adds SPM support.

📦 React Navigation 8 (alpha) shipped a wave of alphas across core, stack, native-stack, tabs and drawer. A breaking change makes navigators use the action source when handling navigation actions. The stack router gets a new remove action, which native-stack now uses when dismissing screens. Navigator state types are preserved in navigation helpers, and browser back is handled from committed navigation state. Native-stack can collapse the mobile address bar on scroll, slow layout on Safari in iOS 27 is fixed, and AGP9's built-in Kotlin support is now handled.

📦 agent-device v0.21.13 wraps up a busy week of ten releases from Callstack. Agents can now fold an iPhone Duo simulator headlessly with animated hinge poses, press the iPhone Action Button, type into the Apple Pay sheet, and set the preferred text size. Recordings can be exported as contact sheets (a single-image grid of frames), Maestro flows support setPermissions, and screenshot diffs accept JPEGs. The latest release also adopts the scene lifecycle so the host app launches on the iOS 27 SDK.

📦 react-native-secure-webview is a hardened WebView for payments, OAuth, and 3-D Secure. It enforces explicit origin allowlists and native navigation, blocks redirects, protects deep links, and fails closed by default.

📦 react-native-screens v5.0.0-alpha.3 adds Stack v5 header customization on Android and iOS, FormSheet stacking, and SPM support.

📦 react-native-view-shot v6.0.0 is a major release that now requires RN 0.80+. It supports the 0.87 Strict TypeScript API and makes html2canvas-pro optional on the web.

📦 expo-infinite-media is a native, TikTok-style paged media feed built on AVFoundation on iOS and Media3 on Android.

📦 @legendapp/list v3.4.0 adds a scroll readiness callback, fixes end-following behavior, and prepares rows based on scroll direction.

📦 @sentry/react-native v8.27.0 adds runtime controls for Session Replay, per-class masking, and a workaround for iOS hangs.

📦 Enriched Markdown iOS v0.3 adds LaTeX math, spoilers, highlights and GitHub alerts, plus better VoiceOver support.

📦 expo-router v58.0.7 closes out a week of patches (58.0.5 → 58.0.7) for the SDK 58 line. There's also a 57.0.22 backport alongside expo 57.0.24 for projects still on SDK 57.

📦 react-native-video v6.19.3 is a patch update to the go-to video component for React Native.

📦 react-native-maps v1.29.8 wraps up a run of six patch releases (1.29.3 → 1.29.8) in two days for the iOS + Android MapView component. Update if you're on 1.29.x.

📦 react-native-windows v0.81.37 continues maintenance on the 0.81 line of React Native for Windows (0.81.36 and 0.81.37 both shipped this week).

📖 What If Your App Could Fix Itself?: Expo turns a bug report into a pull request. An agent reproduces the bug on EAS Simulator, fixes it, and attaches before/after recordings as proof.

📖 What It Takes to Migrate Discord to RN's New Architecture: Software Mansion shares what they learned from almost a year inside Discord's mobile team getting iOS onto the New Architecture.

📖 Exploring Jev for AI-Driven QA with agent-device: Callstack demos cheaper, faster mobile QA with Jev and agent-device, including a CLI proof of concept.

📖 Shopify Helix: the internal tool powering their native migration: Shopify explains why agents alone weren't producing consistent results, and the tooling and guardrails they built to make the migration work.

📖 React Native in an Industry That's Changing looks at how working with agents shifts the line between going native and staying cross-platform.

📖 Do Frameworks Matter Anymore?: Brooks Lybrand argues that without a framework, agents invent their own messy ones, so we need better frameworks, not fewer.

🎬 Expo -Introduction to Agentic Self-Healing Apps: a video walkthrough of the workflow behind apps that detect and fix their own bugs.

🎬 Beto - What's New in Expo SDK 58: a tour of the biggest changes in the new SDK.

💼 Senior React Native Developer – Mattermost: Remote US. Own the mobile app for secure messaging used by defense and critical infrastructure.

💼 Senior React Native Developer – Versant: Remote US. Work on apps for CNBC, USA Network, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes and more.

💼 Senior React Native Developer – Impress: On-site Barcelona, $55k–$65k. Lead the digital transformation at Europe's largest ortho clinic chain.

💼 Senior React Native Developer – PhonePe: Bengaluru, India. Build cross-platform apps at massive scale for one of India's biggest payments platforms.

💼 React Native & Flutter Developer – IFZA Dubai: On-site Dubai. Cross-platform role spanning Flutter and React Native across the full app lifecycle.

💼 Senior React Native Engineer – Aave Labs: Hybrid, London. Build the Aave App's Android and web experiences for one of DeFi's biggest protocols.

💼 Senior React Native Developer – Epassi: Remote EU. Strengthen the mobile team at a leading European employee-benefits platform.

💼 Senior Staff React Native Engineer – Baton Corporation: NYC. Staff-level role at the company that builds and runs the tech stack behind pump.fun.