2025-11-10 · #10
React Native Weekly #10 Startup Time Boost, Shared Element Transitions, Hermes Babel Plugins and more
RCT_EXPORT_MODULE Removed, Improving React Native Startup Time#
RCT_EXPORT_MODULE, which was used in the old Architecture’s Native Modules, has been removed, resulting in faster React Native startup times.
This has already been merged into the main branch, and React Native 0.83 is expected to fully switch over to the New Architecture.
React Native startup will soon get faster! 🚀 Removal of RCT_EXPORT_MODULE from Core modules just landed on main! It eliminates slow +load calls that were required on old architecture (but still called on new one). Check out the PR: github.com/facebook/react-nati…
Snap Releases “Valdi”, a New Cross-Platform UI Framework#
Snap has open-sourced Valdi, a framework used internally at the company that lets you define UI in TypeScript and compile it to native views on iOS, Android, and macOS.
The following kind of code renders natively:
Like React Native, it uses Yoga as its layout engine. It’s fascinating to see — with ByteDance’s Lynx announced about six months ago and now Valdi, it’s becoming clear just how many companies have been building mobile apps with JS internally.
react-native-wgpu 0.4.0 Released#
react-native-wgpu 0.4.0, which brings WebGPU to React Native, has been released. Web is now supported, meaning anything built with react-native-wgpu can run across iOS, Android, Web, and visionOS.
🚀 react-native-wgpu v0.4.0 now runs in the browser too! 🔥 One GPU API powering iOS, Android, Web and visionOS Thank you @wcandillon for this amazing library!
TypeGPU, published by Software Mansion, also uses react-native-wgpu for its React Native support. UI like the jelly slider shown below can now be built in React Native as well.
Ever since I first saw this I wanted to try implementing it in TypeGPU, and I finally got around to it while testing the new 0.8 release. You can try out the Jelly Slider here: docs.swmansion.com/TypeGPU/exa… Had a lot of fun brainstorming optimisations with @iwoplaza and the team, and twitter.com/cerpow/status/1964…
Uniwind 1.0.0 Released, HeroUI Native Adds Uniwind Support#
Uniwind 1.0.0, a high-performance Tailwind binding for React Native, has launched.
I'm thrilled to announce the first stable release of Uniwind (1.0.0)! 🥳 We're also happy to unveil our collaboration with @hero_ui ! Read more about it in our new blog post 👇🏼
HeroUI Native has also added support for Uniwind. Migrating from NativeWind to Uniwind delivers up to a 250% performance improvement.
HeroUI Native beta 1 is live 🔥 🌀 Fully migrated to Uniwind, boosting performance by up to 250% — everything feels smoother than ever 🎨 Brand-new design system, more beautiful and distinctive 📲 Redesigned Expo app, offering a whole new way to explore components HUGE step
New Shared Element Transitions Implementation in React Native Reanimated#
Shared Element Transitions in React Native Reanimated are getting New Architecture support. This brings performance improvements, and since iOS and Android will now share a common C++ implementation, it looks like development efficiency within Reanimated is improving as well.
Shared Element Transitions in React Native Reanimated on the New Architecture 🪄💫
Building an AI-Powered Note-Taking App in React Native#
Software Mansion has kicked off a blog series on building an AI-powered note-taking app. It walks through how to build an AI note-taking app that runs entirely on-device using tools like React Native ExecuTorch and React Native RAG.
Building an AI-Powered Note-Taking App in React Native — Pa…In the first part of our series, you’ll learn how to build an AI note taking app with semantic search using RN ExecuTorch and RN RAG.swmansion.com
Many Babel Plugins Likely to Be Removed in Hermes v1#
With Hermes v1, the next version of React Native’s JS engine, supporting many modern JS language features natively, a number of Babel plugins that were previously required are likely to be dropped. This should also reduce the amount of transpilation needed, meaning faster JS build times too!
Holy shit Hermes v1 (the engine formerly known as Static Hermes) is good! So many JS language features are just built-in and appear to work as-is now. Can't believe how many babel plugins can be deleted from Expo CLI in the future.
One More Thing#
You can start to see the old Architecture pieces being gradually removed as we inch toward React Native 0.83. It’s currently scheduled to release around December 8, 2025, so here’s hoping we can get fully moved over to the New Architecture by the end of the year or into 2026!