Native got easy. I'm still betting on React Native.

This week I built a native Android app without really writing code. Android Studio ships with a Gemini window now. I described the screens, it generated them, installed the dependencies, and the app felt great. I did the same thing on iOS with Claude inside Xcode. The output was genuinely impressive.

Which left me with one question. If AI can build native apps this fast, why am I still choosing React Native?

Here's my honest answer.

The take I see every week

Someone always drops this in my comments: "Why build an iOS app with React Native that just looks like SwiftUI, when you could write SwiftUI directly?"

I get it. I'm a big Apple fan. I want my iOS apps to feel truly native, and I'll admit I've felt limited by React Native in some cases. The pull toward going native has never been stronger. The tooling got good. AI closed most of the skill gap. You can sit down in Xcode or Android Studio today and ship something real.

So the case for "just go native" looks better than it ever has.

What that take misses

The entry bar dropping doesn't change the multiplatform math.

Look at what Apple and Google did this year. At Google I/O, Google said all new Android apps should be built with Jetpack Compose. At WWDC, Apple shipped a wave of new SwiftUI features. Both companies are pouring everything into their own frameworks, and they're moving fast. Great if you live on one platform. A trap if you need both.

Because going native means one of two things. You pick a single platform and pray you never need the other, or you maintain two completely separate codebases. Two languages, two frameworks, two teams who each have to stay current. I've watched companies live this at scale, and it's exactly why so many of them moved to React Native. Two codebases is a tax you pay forever.

React Native with Expo is how you opt out of that tax. And with Expo UI, the old tradeoff is mostly gone. You can bring real SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose views straight into your app, and when you need something native that isn't there yet, you write a custom Expo module and tap into it directly. You're not locked out of the platform. You reach for native only when the use case actually calls for it.

It's not just native getting easier

Here's the part people miss in all the AI hype. Yes, startups are racing to build tools that spin up apps with AI. But look at who else is in the race: the framework creators themselves. Google put Gemini right inside Android Studio. Apple lets you run Claude and Codex inside Xcode. The people who build the platforms are shipping their own agentic tools for going fully native.

And Expo is doing the same for React Native with Expo Agent.

That's the part that matters. AI isn't only making native easier. It's making cross-platform easier too, and it's coming straight from the people who build the framework. Maintaining one codebase across iOS and Android is easier today than it has ever been. Pair that with AI and a strong engineer (not a vibe coder) and the old two-codebases tax gets lighter every month. That's the bet I'd make: one codebase, Expo, AI, and someone who actually knows what they're doing.

The honest part

I'll be straight with you. My own apps don't look perfect on Android yet. iOS gets my attention first, because I'm an Apple guy and I can't help it. But the app still works on Android, it's one codebase, and I can polish it whenever I want. That's a deal I'm happy to make.

Because most of the world is on Android. If your app scales, you will end up supporting it. Not might. Will.

The wall nobody warns you about

Here's the thing underneath all of this. AI dropped the bar to start down to almost zero. It didn't remove the wall. It just moved it.

If you have no technical background and no real idea what you're doing, you'll eventually hit that wall. Not because the tools aren't good enough. Because you won't know what to prompt for. You can have a great idea and still get stuck, because you don't know the questions to ask. AI is incredible at answering questions. It has no idea which ones actually matter. That part is still on you.

But go build anyway

And still, go build. Seriously.

If you're not technical, open one of these tools and make something dumb and fun. A tip calculator. A silly app for you and your friends. Whatever it is. That's the beauty of mobile development. You don't have to build the next big thing to enjoy it. Mess around, ship something pointless, see how it feels.

Then you decide if you want to go deeper or not. And if years in the startup world taught me anything, it's that founders can't be stopped. High-agency people hit the wall and climb it. They learn exactly what they need, technical background or not, and they get it done. Watching that happen is one of my favorite things.

Where I'm placing my bet

I'm staying on React Native. As Expo UI keeps maturing, the native gap keeps closing, and learning it now is one of the highest-leverage things you can do to get ahead of where this is going.

That's exactly why I built the new Expo UI section in my React Native course. It's almost done. If you've been waiting to join Pro, this is the moment. You get the full course, every future course, lifetime updates, and the code examples to go with it.

New Expo UI sectionReact Native course

The full course, every future course, lifetime updates, and the code examples to go with the new Expo UI section.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.