You've seen it before. A React Native app in the wild that just looks like a React Native app. JavaScript bottom tabs, TouchableOpacity buttons, that slightly off platform feel.
For a long time, that was just the cost of going cross-platform.
But thanks to Software Mansion, Expo, and the React Native community, that tradeoff is finally disappearing.
Frameworks like Expo Router are exposing more native APIs, and the result is apps that feel genuinely at home on iOS. Not “close enough.” Actually native.
Why Native Primitives Equal Future-Proof Apps
Before I dive into the features, quick PSA: using native primitives makes your app future-proof.
Case in point: Liquid glass.
When Apple dropped it in iOS 26, it effectively broke every cross-platform framework that fakes Apple's UI. If your framework emulates UIKit instead of using it, you suddenly had a choice: ignore the new design language or refactor your entire UI system. Neither option is great.
Native iOS apps, on the other hand, got the new look for free. Recompile with Xcode 26, ship, done.
And since React Native is, well, native, we get iOS 26's latest features without the drama. Expo Router v55 exposes these APIs cleanly and declaratively, without forcing you to fight the platform.
In this post, I'll walk through the Expo Router features you should be using to make your app feel truly native on iOS 26. Especially now, with AI app generators everywhere, shipping an app is easier than ever. Standing out is the hard part.
If you prefer video, I put together a YouTube tutorial that walks through everything covered here.
Native Tabs
Native tabs use the system tab bar on both Android and iOS, so they automatically respond to system-level behaviors like liquid glass.
Inkigo using the new native tabs in iOS 26