React Native App Connecting to Storefront

What

I created a proof of concept app using react-native that connects to storefront.

Why

We are going to be developing a brand new mobile app for the Design Binder project and currently have a shortage of iOS developers. Since we already use react everywhere, we could leverage our existing full stack and front end developers to build the mobile app using react-native.

Details

I was able to implement authentication and session handling as well as a basic browse page and PDP. I found I was able to reuse all of the existing endpoints used by the current iOS app.

Through building this proof of concept I learned quite a bit about react-native and would highly recommend we start building things using it.

Pros:

• Would allow us to share some code between web and app
  • If structured correctly, this could end up being a large portion of the code
• Allows full-stack or frontend developers to implement features on app
• With a little work, you can compile the same app for iOS and Android
• Compiles to native code
• You can mix react-native and native code together
• Excellent documentation
• We can reuse existing app endpoints when needed
• React native handles cookies and session natively

Cons:

• Existing app developers would need to learn js/react if they wanted to work on react-native features

Built With

• react-native