Hey, notJust Developers,
Last week App.js Conf happened at Kraków, Poland — organised by Software Mansion, with Expo as the main partner and notJust.dev proudly joining as a Media Partner among others. The event was packed with exciting announcements from the Expo and React Native communities. Let’s dive into today’s highlights!
- Legacy Architecture is Frozen
- Future of react native runtime API
- iOS Feature Integration in Expo using
npx create-target 🔥
- Auth components for all platforms 🚀
Missed other conferences? No worries - React Universe Conf is happening September 2–4, 2025, in Wrocław, Poland. It brings together developers and thought leaders to explore the latest trends, share cutting-edge insights, and push the boundaries of what's possible with React and React Native.
Use promo code NJD20 for 20% off your ticket, and be part of something unforgettable.
Legacy Architecture is Frozen🔥
At App.js Conf, Nicola Corti from Meta announced a major shift for the React Native ecosystem: the legacy architecture, which powered React Native since its early versions (up to v0.71), is now officially frozen after June 2nd 2025. That means no more updates, no new features, and no more testing or support from the core team.
The New Architecture, built with Fabric (a new rendering system) and TurboModules (faster, modern, native modules), was first introduced as experimental in version 0.68 and has now matured enough to become the default focus for future development. From now on, all focus is on the New Architecture. It brings better performance, more stability, and unlocks powerful features like smoother animations, optimized memory management, and future support for concurrent rendering.
There are thousands of libraries built on the legacy architecture, but the good news is you can still use them with the new architecture, thanks to the interop layers—a system that lets older libraries run smoothly within the new architecture. These interop layers act as a bridge and are not being removed anytime soon, making it easier for the community to migrate gradually without breaking existing apps.
If you're starting a new React Native app, you should be using the New Architecture today. And if you're still on the old system, now's the time to start migrating—before support is removed completely.
Note: Please avoid submitting pull requests to the legacy architecture, as new PRs are unlikely to be merged.
Future of react native runtime API🔥
Alex Hunt from the Meta React Native team introduced the Strict TypeScript API—a brand-new, stable JavaScript API baseline for React Native.
React Native’s JavaScript API has grown without strict boundaries, making it unclear which parts are meant for public use and which are internal implementation details. While most developers use clean imports like import { View, Text } from 'react-native', many rely on deep imports like import foo from 'react-native/Libraries/Utilities/foo' to access internal modules. These aren’t officially supported, so when the core team refactors or renames files, apps suddenly break. On top of that, TypeScript types are handwritten and live separately from the actual implementation, which means they often fall out of sync, causing confusing type errors and a poor developer experience.
To address this, React Native v0.80 will start warning you whenever you use a deep import and encourage you to stick to the official, top-level imports like import { View, Text } from 'react-native'. At the same time, you can opt into a new Strict TypeScript API, which is an automatically generated file that exactly matches the real code. The result? Your editor’s autocomplete and type checks stay in sync with React Native itself—no more “false” errors or hidden surprises.
Note: In v0.82 (a couple of releases later), deep imports will be fully blocked and the Strict TS API will become the default; and by late 2025, all old hand-written TypeScript types will be removed.
iOS Feature Integration in Expo using npx create-target🔥
Evan Bacon from the Expo team recently released a new tool: npx create-target. This CLI helps you easily add native iOS features to your app—things that used to require a lot of manual setup in Xcode.
With npx create-target, you can now integrate advanced iOS features like:
- Home Screen Widgets – users can pin parts of your app to their home screen.
- Share Extensions – Your app appears in the iOS share menu
- Live Activities – show real-time updates (like delivery tracking) on the lock screen
- App Clips – launch a mini-version of your app directly from a link, NFC tag, or QR code
These features look and feel like your regular app, but they’re simpler and open more quickly. App users can still tap, swipe, and feel vibrations—just like in the full app. For example, a user could scan a QR code or click on a widget to instantly open an App Clip for ordering coffee, booking a ride, or previewing content, etc.
This tool makes it easier than ever to bridge the gap between web-style convenience and native iOS capabilities. If you're building for iOS, npx create-target is definitely worth a look.
Auth components for all platforms🔥
At App.js Conf Day 2, Laura Beatris from Clerk announced the upcoming Clerk Expo package, bringing full authentication support to all Expo platforms, not just the web. This means developers can now build native mobile auth experiences with the same ease they’ve had on the web.
Clerk’s old Expo Web UI components were fine for quick demos, but they were too big and stiff for phones, tablets, or watches. The new Clerk Expo package leverages Clerk’s native iOS and Android SDKs and introduces Clerk Elements for Expo—headless, composable blocks like identifier fields, social login buttons, and OTP steps. These elements give developers full control over the UI while handling the logic behind the scenes.
That’s it 🙌
Augment Code just launched Remote Agent, and it's changing the game for developers. Poonam Soni says it’s time to say goodbye to Cursor and make the switch. What do you think—ready to try it?
🔁 In case you missed it
Build an AI App in 2-Days Challenge
Welcome to the 2-day AI App challenge, where you’ll learn to build an AI-powered ChatGPT-style app in just 2 days. On Day 1, you’ll build the full UI, set up chat history with Zustand, learn about Markdown, create API routes, connect the app to OpenAI API, and more!
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Tools I use to build mobile apps FAST with React Native
I’ll walk you through my complete tech stack for building production-ready mobile apps - fast. From the frameworks and libraries I use daily, to the AI tools and IDEs that supercharge my workflow, you’ll get an inside look at how I ship scalable apps.
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🔥 Press worthy
1️⃣ Radon IDE v1.7 adds inline debugging and improved TypeScript support.
2️⃣ Luxe 2.0 is here — with a full redesign and new features.
3️⃣ Vitest 3.2 is out with a new Annotations API, better V8 coverage, and more!
4️⃣ Reanimated 3.18 now supports React Native v0.80.
5️⃣ Oskar Kwaśniewski opened a new PR to bring super-smooth 120 FPS animations to the Animated API.
Did you learn something new today?
If you found this email valuable, forward it to one friend or coworker who can also benefit from it. That would be much appreciated 🙏
The newsletter was written by Anis and edited by Vadim Savin.
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Vadim Savin
Helping you become a better developer together with the notJust.dev team
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