In our popular year-end recap, our hosts are all back tother and joined by guest Josh Yoes to review the biggest React Native developments of 2025! They cover major releases, the shift to the new architecture, React 19 support, and how tooling and performance evolved across the ecosystem.

Connect With Us!

• Blog Post | React Native Wrapped 2025 by Joshua Yoes

Connect With Us!

• Josh Yoes: @JoshuaYoes
• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren
• Robin Heinze: @robinheinze
• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With over a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Mazen and Robin are joined by fan-favorite Taylor Desseyn to discuss how the React Native job market has shifted in 2025 and why community matters more than ever. They break down what skills companies want now and how developers can stand out in a tighter market.

Show Notes

1. RNR 302 - Landing a Job with Taylor Desseyn
2. Thelma & James (The band Taylor worked with that went viral on TikTok)
3. Torc
4. Torc's Community (Discord)
5. Infinite Red Community (Slack)
6. Taylor’s Keynote 

Connect With Us!

• Taylor Desseyn: @tdesseyn
• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• Robin Heinze: @robinheinze
• React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With over a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Mazen and Jamon chat with Simon Grimm about his move from Ionic pioneer to React Native creator. Simon highlights key cross-platform trends, why React Native’s future looks exciting, and how he supports developers through Galaxies.dev.

Show Notes

• Simon Grimm's podcast, Rocket Ship: https://podcast.galaxies.dev
• Zero to Hero, Launch Your First Real Mobile App in 30 Days: https://galaxies.dev/missions/zero-to-hero 

Connect With Us!

• Simon Grimm: @schlimmson
• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren
• React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With over a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Mazen talks with Alex Lanclos from Skylight about how they power their wildly popular smart displays with React Native! Mazen and Alex dig into architecture upgrades, performance wins, and why Skylight is so excited about the framework’s future.

Show Notes

• Skylight
• RNR 328 - Flashlight with Alexandre Moureaux
• RNR 325 - Legend List with Jay Meistrich

Connect With Us!

• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

In this episode, Mazen Chami sits down with Mustafa Ali (Director of Engineering and Head of Mobile at Shopify) and Thiago Magalhães (Staff Software Developer at Shopify) to dive deep into Shopify’s transition to the new React Native architecture.

Show Notes

• Shopify Blog: Migrating to React Native's New Architecture by Thiago Magalhaes
• RNR 319: Shopify goes full throttle throttle on React Native with Mustafa Ali

Connect With Us!

• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• Mustafa Ali: @mustafa01ali
• Thiago Magalhães: LinkedIn
• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Expo SDK 54 and React Native 0.81 are a perfect match—and our hosts Mazen Chami, Frank Calise, and Tyler Williams are here to break it all down. In this episode, they dive deep into everything new in Expo SDK 54, from faster precompiled iOS builds to the sleek Liquid Glass feature and Android 16 support. If you want the complete rundown of what’s fresh, powerful, and ready to use in Expo SDK 54, this episode has you covered.

Show Notes

• Expo SDK 54 beta is now available
• Precompiling the Expo SDK for iOS
• Expo Autolinking
  • Infinite Red's article
  • Phil Pluckthun's article

Connect With Us!

• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• Frank Calise: @frankcalise
• Tyler Williams: @coolsoftwaredev
• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

This week, Mazen is joined by Infinite Red teammates Frank Calise and Tyler Williams to unpack everything included in the huge React Native 0.81 release. They cover Android 16 support, precompiled iOS builds, and many other updates! 

Show Notes

• React Native 0.81 Blog Article
• Expo SDK 54 Beta Blog Article

Connect With Us!

• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• Frank Calise: @frankcalise
• Tyler Williams: @coolsoftwaredev
• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Chas Jhin, Director of Engineering for Discord, joins our hosts to unpack Discord’s adoption of React Native. Chas opens up about Discord's experience adopting React Native, performance challenges, and the New Architecture.

Show Notes

• Discord's Switch Android to React Native (2022)
• Supercharging Discord Mobile (2025)
• Achieving Native iOS performance with React Native (2019) 
• React Native Mornings

Connect With Us!

• Chas Jhin: @chasjhin
• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren
• Robin Heinze: @robinheinze
• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami
• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Infinite Red's own Mark Rickert joins to discuss the new Ignite 11 "Bison" release and the thoughtful changes that went into it! This latest update removes MobX State Tree as the default state management to give developers more flexibility, streamlines everything to new architecture-only, and includes improved light/dark theming right out of the box. 

He also shared with our hosts why the name of this release is codenamed "BISON"

Show Notes

• Ignite 11: Bison 🦬
• Mark's Blog Post Announcing Ignite 11
• Ignite's Official Docs
• Theming Ignite Apps
• Ignite Cookbook
• RNR 335 - State Management Revisited
• Ignite Diff Purge
• Optimizing Flatlist Configuration

Connect With Us!

• React Native Radio: @reactnativerdio
• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren
• Robin Heinze: @robinheinze
• Mazen Chami: @mazenchami

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.

Maestro CEO Leland Takamine joins Jamon and Robin to discuss Maestro’s growth, new tools like Studio Desktop and cloud testing, and why reliability matters for automated testing.

Show Notes

• Maestro's website
• RNR 262 - Maestro: The App-solute Solution for Mobile UI Testing
• Flashlight Maestro Docs

Connect With Us!

• Leland Takamine: @lelandtakamine
• Jamon Holmgren: @jamonholmgren
• Robin Heinze: @robinheinze
• React Native Radio: @ReactNativeRdio

This episode is brought to you by Infinite Red!

Infinite Red is an expert React Native consultancy located in the USA. With nearly a decade of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter, core React Native contributors, creators of Ignite and Reactotron, and much, much more), Infinite Red is the best choice for helping you build and deploy your next React Native app.