Migrating to React Native: A long-term retrospective
summary
Artsy migrates iOS incrementally: it embeds React Native via an emission Cocoapod into eigen, keeps native fallbacks for hard bits, and adopts TypeScript, GraphQL/Relay and a shared UI library called Palette. A small training program and a Mobile Experience team convert cultural friction into cross‑team productivity; app store rating rises from under 4 to 4.7. The migration works by isolating JS, preserving UX, consolidating repos, and staffing native experts for the remaining 5% of platform work.
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chapters (19)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:28Early app architecture
- 7:26Swift adoption struggles
- 9:56React Native first steps
- 12:23Why React Native better
- 16:57Choosing TypeScript over Flow
- 19:02Team reorganization
- 22:13GraphQL and Relay adoption
- 26:03React Native conference
- 27:51Code sharing with Palette
- 30:15Productivity gains
- 32:24React Native training
- 36:58Mobile experience team
- 41:13Combining repositories
- 45:06App store ranking improvement
- 48:57Six key lessons learned
- 59:01Empowered team necessity
- 1:01:06Technical and cultural debt
- 1:03:14Future plans and closing
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