Roadmap

This document outlines some of the upcoming plans for React Native. Since React Native is a fast-moving project with a large amount of community contribution, this roadmap doesn't include everything that will go into React Native.

The React Native roadmap can be broken down into three key priorities: adding functionality to the core libraries, improving the overall stability of React Native by reducing bugs and breaking changes, and making the developer experience better.

Core Libraries

• A new standard navigation library. Owners: skevy, ericvicenti. ETA: January
  • Right now there are a large number of navigation libraries. We don't think one navigation library will be enough for every use case, but we do think we can make it better. The goal is for this new navigation library to be ideal for apps that handle navigation in JavaScript. Once it is released and stable, we can deprecate Navigator, NavigationExperimental, and ExNavigation.
  • This is in response to the feature request: https://productpains.com/post/react-native/better-navigator-api-and-docs
• Smoother animations. Owners: ji, janicduplessis. ETA: December
  • There are many improvements here, but a key milestone is when we have the navigation sliding & fading transitions working with the native driver and the backswipe gesture too if that interacts with the native driver in any way.
  • This is in response to the feature request: https://productpains.com/post/react-native/offload-some-animations-from-js-thread-for-better-perf
• Orientation. Owners: Mehdi Mulani. ETA: January
  • A better library for letting developers control orientation in an app. This has been a common area of feedback and we think we can improve the experience here.
• Complete Apple TV support. Owners: douglowder. ETA: January
  • The focus engine support needed for Apple TV to work is still in review. In addition, we still need to handle test automation for the Apple TV focus engine support, making other projects in the Examples directory (besides UIExplorer) work on Apple TV, generation of new Apple TV projects in react-native-cli, and making the packager (and Javascript layer) aware if a bundle is intended to run on Apple TV.
• A standard navigation library for hybrid apps. Owners: Leland Richardson. ETA: February
  • A navigation library specifically designed for applications that are part native, part React Native. We are pretty sure the right solution involves a different navigation library. Once this is released and stable, we can deprecate NavigatorIOS.
• Better maps. Owners: Leland Richardson. ETA: March
  • Since the plan is to make the react-native-maps module the officially recommended maps solution for the React Native community, we need more features to be considered complete. We want iOS support for MapKit, Google Maps, and Mapbox and Android support for Google maps and Mapbox. In particular this should improve quality in China.

Stability

• Improved packager. Owner: Christoph Pojer. ETA: June
  • We are working on further improving stability, reliability and performance of React Native's packager. The precise form this improvement should take is not yet clear. We'll have more exciting news to share in the near future!

Developer Experience

• Templates for react-native init. Owners: martinkonicek. ETA: January
  • The goal is to make it simpler to set up new applications, by providing templates for a few common use cases. In particular, a template is very useful for setting up the root navigation flow, so for tabbed apps or for apps that use a card stack as the root view, templates should make that noticeably easier.
• Flowtyping the core components. Owners: yungsters, alex_frantic. ETA: January
  • Making the most common components come with Flow types, for a better typechecking experience. This should also make it easier to reduce breaking changes. Flow already comes with React Native, so this is a logical step to further improve the experience.
• Faster app reloads during development. Owners: cpojer. ETA: February
  • We'll focus on rewriting packager internals and building updateable bundles so that in development mode only the changed files have to be sent to the device.

Thanks to all the individuals and companies - Facebook, Exponent, Airbnb, and Salesforce - helping out with the projects on this roadmap!

If you have suggestions for features that you think would be valuable on the roadmap, check out Product Pains, where you can suggest new features and discuss existing proposals, or contact lacker.