'And any time somebody tries to reimplement a native widget using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, it always feels like s_t,' Occhino said. We can't see what the parameters are.' Developers just can't see the numbers, the specifications, the things that make widgets 'feel like they feel,' he said. 'We don't have access to the source code. 'Native widgets are a black box,' Occhino said during a conference keynote address in January when the company announced React Native.

Occhino highlighted various attempts to duplicate native widgets as an example. No matter what, he said, the resulting apps derived from the traditional cross-platform approach never quite match the performance of 'real' native apps developed specifically for one OS using requisite native languages and tools. As explained by Facebook engineer Tom Occhino, company devs decided that 'write once, run anywhere' just doesn't work, despite myriad attempts to realize the dream of using one codebase to target multiple OSes. What sets React Native apart from a zillion other JavaScript frameworks/libraries is its unique approach to cross-platform app development, eschewing the classic 'write once, run anywhere' approach in favor of a 'learn once, write anywhere' paradigm.

Facebook engineers took their React framework for building Web sites and applied it to creating fully native mobile apps for iOS and Android. Part of the larger story of JavaScript evolving into a first-class programming language option far beyond its Web site scripting origins, this trend was exemplified by the emergence of React Native in the mobile realm. Following are three trends mobile developers should keep an eye on as we progress in the new year. Last year saw the emergence of forces promising a tectonic shake-up of the mobile app development industry in 2016.

Verivo appstudio