React Native is a popular open-source framework for building native mobile apps using React and JavaScript. With the release of iOS 15 in September 2021, many developers are wondering if their React Native apps will support the latest iOS features and capabilities.
Introduction to React Native
React Native allows developers to build mobile apps for iOS and Android using the same React codebase. Instead of writing native code in Swift or Java, you can write in JavaScript and React Native will convert that to native UI components. This allows for faster development and greater code reuse across platforms.
Some key advantages of React Native include:
- Write Once, Use Anywhere – Share code across iOS, Android, and web apps
- Use Familiar React – Leverage knowledge of React, JSX, and JavaScript
- Live Reload – View changes instantly without rebuilding the app
- Large Community – Active community provides libraries and support
- Performance – React Native compiles to native code for near-native performance
Popular apps built with React Native include Facebook, Instagram, Discord, Airbnb, and Tesla. The mature ecosystem and extensive documentation make React Native a popular choice for cross-platform mobile development.
Introduction to iOS 15
Announced at WWDC 2021, iOS 15 represents a major update to Apple’s mobile operating system. Some of the new features and capabilities include:
- Live Text – Detect text in photos and extract it
- Focus mode – Filter notifications and apps
- Maps – More detailed maps data and new AR walking directions
- Weather – Redesigned weather app with maps and animations
- Safari – New tab layout and tab grouping
- Notifications – New look with contact photos and widgets
- FaceTime – Spatial audio, voice isolation, and grid view
- Wallet – Support for home keys and state IDs
iOS 15 is compatible with all devices capable of running iOS 14, which includes iPhone 6s and later. The update was made available to the public on September 20, 2021.
React Native Compatibility with iOS 15
The core React Native framework will work with iOS 15 without any major issues. Since React Native converts JavaScript code into native UI components, apps built with React Native will automatically support standard native capabilities present in iOS 15.
However, there are a few caveats to keep in mind:
- New iOS 15 features like Live Text may not work out of the box in React Native without additional native code integration.
- Certain React Native UI libraries and components may need to be updated to support new iOS 15 UI changes.
- Apps will need to target the iOS 15 SDK in order to use APIs for new capabilities like Focus and Live Text.
While the core React Native architecture will remain compatible, developers may need to do some work to integrate support for cutting-edge iOS 15 features. Fortunately, the React Native community is very active in quickly adopting support for new OS capabilities.
Support for Key iOS 15 Features
Here is a look at the current status of React Native support for some of the major new iOS 15 features:
Live Text
Live Text allows you to detect text in photos and video frames, select it, and act on it. For example, you can copy and paste text from an image into a text field.
React Native does not currently have native support for Live Text OCR capabilities. However, it is possible to integrate third-party OCR libraries like Tesseract via native modules. So full Live Text support is possible with some extra implementation work.
Focus
The new Focus mode allows users to filter notifications and apps to avoid distractions. This is integrated with Siri suggestions and on-device intelligence.
Focus modes can be detected and integrated into React Native apps. Apps can check the current Focus mode and react accordingly, such as muting certain notifications. However, deeper integration with suggesting Focus modes based on user activity requires more native code support.
Maps
Apple Maps gets significantly enhanced details, AR directions, and new nighttime modes.
React Native apps can automatically leverage Maps improvements through the built-in MapKit JS binding. Features like AR walking directions can be implemented by integrating MapKit JS with ARKit.
Weather
The built-in Weather app features a major redesign with new data visualizations.
React Native has full access to the native Weather and location APIs, allowing apps to incorporate real-time weather data. However, the complex new visual effects would need to be recreated natively.
Safari
Safari gains Tab Groups for better organization and a new compact tab bar.
Since Safari is a system-level app, these changes do not directly affect React Native. However, in-app browsers powered by WebKit will automatically pick up the new rendering capabilities.
Notifications
Notifications now support contact photos, widgets, and a new look.
React Native apps can leverage the built-in PushNotificationIOS module to work with notifications. The new notification features should be supported automatically where applicable.
FaceTime
FaceTime gains support for spatial audio, voice isolation, grid view, and more.
As a system-level API, FaceTime features are not directly accessible from React Native. Implementing FaceTime-like functionality would require integrating native APIs like AVFoundation.
Wallet
Wallet can now store home keys, hotel keys, state IDs, and more.
Direct Wallet integration is not available in React Native currently. Support for capabilities like home key access would need native code integration with the Wallet Services API.
Summary of iOS 15 Support
In summary, while React Native will run just fine on iOS 15, full support for cutting-edge features requires additional native code integration. Fortunately, React Native makes this possible through native modules and bindings like MapKit JS. The active community will likely add more component libraries and integrations over time as well.
Here is a quick compatibility overview:
| iOS 15 Feature | React Native Support |
|---|---|
| Live Text | Limited – Requires native code integration |
| Focus | Partial – Can detect Focus mode but limited integration |
| Maps | Full – Leverages MapKit JS improvements |
| Weather | Full – Can access native weather APIs |
| Safari | Indirect – Affects in-app web views |
| Notifications | Full – Uses PushNotificationIOS module |
| FaceTime | None – Requires native integration |
| Wallet | None – Requires native Wallet integration |
How to Add iOS 15 Support
Here are some tips on adding full support for iOS 15 capabilities in your React Native app:
- Update React Native and library dependencies to latest versions
- Target iOS 15 SDK in Xcode project settings
- Check Feature Availability at runtime before using new APIs
- Write native Swift/Obj-C modules to bridge new iOS APIs
- Contribute to React Native community libraries for reusable components
- Report any iOS 15 issues you find on React Native GitHub
Let’s take a quick look at how we can build a native module to add Live Text support:
Building a Live Text Module
We’ll use Swift to build a native module that allows calling the iOS Vision framework to detect text in an image. Here are the key steps:
- Create a Swift file LiveTextModule.swift
- Import required frameworks like UIKit and Vision
- Add @objc markings to expose methods to React Native
- Implement detectText(image: UIImage) -> String method using Vision API
- Return the detected text result from Vision as a String
- Expose this class as a RCT_EXPORT_MODULE
- Call this method from React Native using LiveTextModule.detectText()
The native module bridges the Vision text detection capabilities into React Native. The same approach can be followed to build interfaces for other iOS APIs.
Conclusion
React Native remains a solid choice for building cross-platform mobile apps even with major iOS releases like iOS 15. While some cutting-edge features require extra native code integration, the React Native architecture allows you to call into iOS APIs directly from JavaScript.
Existing React Native apps will run fine on iOS 15. And with some additional implementation work, developers can enable support for major iOS 15 capabilities like Live Text, Focus modes, FaceTime integration, and more. The React Native community will also likely provide libraries and components to make adoption of new iOS capabilities easier.
Overall, if you are investing in React Native for your mobile app, you can rest assured that it will have a smooth upgrade path as Apple rolls out iOS 15 and future iOS updates.