It is no new thing that businesses around the world are rapidly changing their business models to fit the new age of digital platforms. Most of these businesses have chosen to use React Native and other cross platform mobile development frameworks to bring digital solutions to their customers world wide.
As mobile apps have taken the center stage in all spheres right from communication to shopping, healthcare to entertainment, therefore businesses have recognized the fact that without having a digital presence, it becomes challenging to survive in the market for the next decades.
So many of these businesses, being aware of the several options of frameworks and programming languages to use for their mobile applications, now face the dilemma of choosing which framework best suits their needs.
I am a mobile developer with two years of experience working with React Native and I can tell you without mincing words that React Native is the best framework to use for your apps, especially if its an app that has a web version.
Surely, if you have landed on this blog post, you must be excited to know more about React Native, and how you can build a successful mobile app with React Native. But before digging deep into the blog, here are the key highlights for you:
- Introducing React Native As a Leading Cross-Platform Framework
- Why Should You Choose React Native For Mobile App Development?
- Tips To Build Successful Mobile App In 2022
- How To Get Started With Mobile App Development Using React Native?
- A Step-By-Step Guide For Creating a React Native Mobile App
- How Much Does It Cost To Build a Successful Mobile App Using React Native?
Let’s dig deep into these points for better understanding…
Introducing React Native As a Leading Cross-Platform Framework
React Native is a JavaScript-based cross-platform framework that has been widely used for creating native-like mobile applications for iOS and Android platforms. Despite being launched in 2015 by Facebook, React Native has quickly taken the center stage as the open-source framework. Eventually, it has gained popularity as a best app development solution after powering many apps including Skype, Instagram, Facebook, and more.
With the advantage of reusability of codes, quick testing capabilities of running app on both iOS and Android platform, regardless made it a perfect platform for the app development.
You don’t have to take our words, here is the survey report explaining the popularity of React Native.
Why Should You Choose React Native For Mobile App Development?
Undoubtedly, React Native has a heart of 42% of developers globally, but when it comes to making an investment in the app development project many of the businesses are wondering “why does React Native is the first choice for app development.
Here are the few reasons making React Native is a winning choice for app development.
- Saves Time and Money
The biggest reason for choosing React Native for app development is it saves you time, effort and cost. The cost of creating two native apps for different platforms costs you higher than developing an app with React Native using a single codebase. So instead of hiring mobile app developer to create two native apps, with React Native, developers can deploy the same update for both iOS and Android platforms without any extra effort of using a different codebase.
- High Performance
The performance of the app is always a central concern of businesses. And the React Native apps are as good as Android and iOS native apps. While other cross-platform frameworks use CPU, React Native uses GPU for the computing tasks. This is a major reason why React Native apps are superior in performance.
- Over-The-Air Updates
OTA update is an innovative feature of React Native that allows developers to make changes in the backend while the users are active on the app. The updates will reflect instantly on the app once it’s done. In other words, users can often update the app automatically without going through the app store. This feature of React Native makes the entire procedure of updating the app quick and hassle-free.
- Open-Source Is The Biggest Advantage
React Native provides a free to use a broad choice of native-like UI tools to customize the beautiful application. Developers do not have challenges migrating React Native apps from one platform to another as React Native allows developers to seamlessly export codes from Android Studio to Xcode.
These are the few outstanding features of React Native that make it stand apart from other cross-platform frameworks. But the question is how to create a successful app in 2022.
Tips To Build Successful Mobile App In 2022
Before you get into the process of mobile app development, it is worth gathering some tips that enable you to build a successful application and add an edge to your business in 2022.
- Never Get Straight Into the App Development Process
Speaking from experience, we directly start coding right away and after two years of coding an app with multiple choices of features, the app eventually becomes a failure. The reason was, by the time it got launched, it turned out there was no market need for that product. The usual cost to hire a React Native app development company is quite ranging from USD 20 to USD 50 per hour, so instead of putting all such efforts into the drain, it is a logical consideration to conduct market research.
The biggest lesson learnt from this is to do some homework before spending thousands of dollars on the app development process.
- Invest Into MVP Development First
Another essential tip to follow for app development is to start with an MVP-minimum viable product. With this approach, you can market a product with basic functionality as early as 3 to 4 months. The prime logic of creating an MVP solution is to understand the real-life pulse of your customers and evaluate the user’s feedback. This type of app version can save you a lot from the hassle of building a full-fledged app that has no market.
These are the two major tips to build a successful mobile app, but the central question remains the same: how to build a mobile app with React Native right from the scratch?
Here is the step-to-step guide to creating a successful mobile app using React Native.
How To Get Started With Mobile App Development Using React Native?
Now that you have a basic understanding of React Native and its benefits of developing a mobile app, you must be curious to know about how to get started with the mobile app development process with React Native.
So here is the illustration of building a mobile app using React Native. In this React Native mobile app development tutorial, you will earn a step-by-step guide to build a newspaper app that fetches and displays news articles from a third-party REST API.
Getting Started With An App Development Process With React Native
Step 1: Prerequisites To Get Started
Since we are developing a mobile app from a scratch using JavaScript and React Native, so to get started, you will need some prerequisites to proceed with the app development process:
- Download NPM and Node.js on your system. For installation instructions, you can follow the below command:
sudo apt install curlcurl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.3/install.sh | bashsource ~/.bashrcnvm install vxx.x.x
Since we are creating a news app with React Native, therefore you need to register a free account with NewsAPI.org and note the API key for headlines and articles.
If you have these prerequisites on your system, then you are ready to proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Installing Expo CLI
To use Expo tools, you need to download Expo CLI. So to install the Expo CLI, you need to open a new terminal on your system and run the command below:
$ npm install -g expo-cli
Note: If you are using Linux or macOS to install npm packages, then use SUDO. In case you are facing any issues, you can click here.
Step 3: Creating a React Native Project
Once you install the Expo CLI, now it’s time to start your React Native project. To get started, you can use the below command:
$ expo init react-native-example
Next, you will be asked to choose a template for your project. So use a blank template and type the name of the project and then wait for CLI to generate the files and install the packages from NPM.
Now, navigate your project’s folder and run the local development server using the below command:
$ cd react-native-example$ expo start
After running this command, you’ll get the below details in your terminal. Depending upon your development environment, you can either use an iOS simulator or an Android emulator, or a mobile device, to test your application. In case you don’t have any development environment with Java or installed an Android Studio or macOS with Xcode, then you can hire a mobile app development company to help you install Expo app on your mobile device by scanning a QR code below. While it is simple to follow still to avoid any risk you can consult experts here.
After scanning a QR code on your mobile device, you can easily install the Expo App. Now your app screen will most probably look like below:
Now open the App.js file and follow the below codes for rendering the UI components in the app.
Step 4: Adding Multiple Screens To Your React Native App
To create multiple screens and views you need to use conditional rendering. Further, in case of complex scenarios, you will need to use advanced navigation systems such as React Native library. Since in our case we’ll have two views in our application, therefore it is worth using conditional rendering for implementing multiple screens. Here is the command that you need to follow in App.js and define a Home() component:
Next, it’s time for the Loading component as shown below:
After that, change the App() component by following the command:
Now your final screen will be looking like the below image:
And this will be your home screen:
Now you are ready with your home screen that has no content to display. Since we are illustrating the tutorial of developing a news app, therefore, let’s understand how to fetch data in React Native.
Step 5: Fetching Data in React Native
Till now you have learned how to change between two screens, let’s see how we can fetch data from a REST API. Once you are done with the data fetching, then you need to render the home screen. When you are hiring a React native app developer, they can easily level the Fetch API of React Native, which allows you to consume REST APIs or fetch data from servers without any hassle.
Let’s get started with the process.
5.1: For the loading component, we need to useeffect hook to perform a side effect. In our case, we are fetching data from a REST API server. Now resume back your App.js file and add the API_KEY and apiurl variables using the below command:
5.2: Add the item state variable for storing news and it better start with an empty array by using the useState() hook. Else you can use the below command as well.
5.3: Call the fetch() method in the useEffect() hook to fetch data from the news API by following the below command:
5.4: Allow those fetched articles to the <home> component using a data property using the below command:
5.5: Now, the data has been fetched from the REST APIs and passed to the home component. Now you can hire an app developer to modify the component to enable it to render the passed data from the data prop. While it’s a complicated process, experts can make you easily complete this task without any hassle. Rest for ready refer, we have attached the command below, all you need is to change the Home function as follow:
5.6: Now instead of using the <view> contained, we call the JS map() method for iterating over the data array and displaying each news article using a Text component.
5.7: Finally your app screen is ready to flash all news data. Your app screen most probably looks like the image below.
5.8: If you noticed above, the news article looks more like random stuff of words that required some style, images, or list.
So to improve the UI design of the app screen, you need to change the Home() component and import the Flatlist by using the below command.
5.9: To make your app screen more engaging and attractive, you need to add images. But instead of rendering the title of the news article, you can hire an app development company to display other information like description, URL, and image. But to make changes, you need to head back to the App.js file and using the below command, add the following function:
5.10: To add style to your app, you can add the following style using the below-mentioned command.
5.11: Finally you have made a news article screen using React Native. Hopefully, your screen must be looking like the screen below.
Hopefully, you enjoyed this tutorial on developing a mobile app using React Native framework. But your one such major concern revolves around how much does it cost to create an app using React Native. If it is so, then you can read further to get an estimation.
How Much Does It Cost To Build a Successful Mobile App Using React Native?
If you are eyeing to know how much does it cost to build a mobile app without having any idea about what to include in your app and what type of app you need to develop, then I guess you are asking an invalid question.
Before you aggressively look here and there for the average app development cost, you need to understand what parameters are contributing to the app development cost. The major factors range from complexity of the app, features, and functionalities, testing complexities, UI/UX designing, choice of operating platform, and more.
Still, if you are planning to build a basic mobile app embracing basic features, then the average cost could be ranging from USD 20,000 to 25,000 for each platform. Whereas in case you are looking to build a full-fledged app comprising all such advanced features, then the app development cost may range from USD 25,000 to 35,000 for each platform.
But here the major difference that you can bring in cost by considering developing your app with React Native is saving approx 40% cost on the development. With the advantage of Hot reloading, reusability of coding, cross-platform compatibility, you can enhance the development efficiency and save on efforts and time. All in all, developing an app with React Native can be a perfect decision to save on cost and make your app future-ready.
Before you make any conclusion, it is worth understanding that every business has its own unique needs, therefore demand for different solutions. Therefore, to get fair estimations of your project, it is a logical decision to book a free consultation slot with experts.
Conclusion: Get Ready To Build a Mobile App With React Native
There is no denying the fact that the world is fastly moving towards digital platforms and building an application with React Native is one such lucrative option for businesses and startups. Taking the advantage of React Native’s features, businesses can launch a mobile app that seamlessly runs on multiple platforms. By hiring a mobile app development company, you can transform any app idea into a fully-functional app.
Right from planning, designing to development, the experts will include the best approaches at all development stages to empower you with potential solutions. All in all, developing an app with React Native is a perfect approach if you really want your presence in the future market.