Today we’ll take a closer look into the world of app development with React Native and Meteor.

Introducing “Friends”

“Friends” is a sample application which is available on GitHub and uses React Native in combination with Meteor to show you a list of friends which is reactive and updates automatically when friends are added, updated or removed.

How is this done?

I recommend you to take a look at the commits on GitHub where I’ve explained how to develop this application step by step.

Additionally here’s a rough explanation what these application do and how they interact with each other:

A basic Meteor application acts as a server and data store for your list of friends.
Some example friends are inserted when the Meteor application is started. A publication makes it possible for other clients to subscribe to a list of friends via DDP.

The React Native app subscribes to the friends publication through DDP and renders the friends on a ListView.

Why React Native?

React Native is a very young, but also promising technology. The main selling point of React Native is the JavaScript approach which makes it easy for you to develop Android and iOS application with the help of pure JavaScript. As a Meteor developer you don’t have to switch between JavaScript and Objective-C / Swift anymore. I’ve you’re experienced with React components it will be even easier as React Native uses React components as a view layer.

Conclusion

Meteor and React Native is a great fit. If you want to develop reactive apps in one language you should definitely give it a try and tinker around. It’s impressive how easy you can develop iOS or Android applications if you have a basic understanding of React!