Setting Up the Example App

Ah! The moment we’ve probably been waiting for: actually creating an app!

We will start by preparing our development environment. We will need an integrated development environment (IDE) such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom, or anything else we prefer. An IDE is all we need to write React Native code. But we also need a way to see what the code renders, don’t we?

In the case of web development, we would simply use the browser to see and test our code. However, React Native apps cannot be easily tested in a web browser. They can and should be tested on real or simulated devices. In an ideal situation, we would have access to multiple phones, which we would plug into our computer via USB in order to see our app. Most of us don’t have multiple phones, though. That’s why we can use phone simulators. There are two major players in the mobile world: Android and Apple. Android simulators are available for virtually any desktop platform thanks to the Android Studio app. Unfortunately, iPhone simulators can be run exclusively on Mac computers.

Setting up simulators can be a daunting task, but don’t worry too much! There’s Expo!

We discussed Expo in the first chapter. If you skipped that part, let’s give you a quick rundown. Expo is a React Native development tool that makes building, testing, and publishing apps much easier. It is a wrapper on top of React Native aimed at making the developer experience smoother.