React Native or Swift: How Proficient Are These Frameworks for Your Next Project?

React Native and Swift, both are the new technologies that support mobile app development for iOS devices. React Native is a framework for Java while Swift is a brand-new programming language.  Therefore, the main question is which one should be picked up for your next project.  When you hire the top mobile app development companies in India, they can suggest to you better which technology is better according to the requirement of your project.

A cultural and social phenomenon release in June 2007. Since then, the popularity of the device’s popularity goes high as the brand saw an impressive share of 13.2 % in global smartphone unit sales. It is especially impressive when seen in the context – Apple is a premium brand, while these figures include also a no-name or budget brand, sold on emerging markets.

IOS-powered devices see the biggest popularity in strong economies of the US, Canada, Scandinavia, and Australia. At the end of 2017, 78% of US teens owned an iPhone and 80% claimed that their next smartphone would be also iOS-powered.

Considering that, it is no surprise, that Apple is strong enough to force own frameworks and programming languages – and that is what Swift is.

The Rise in the Popularity of iPhones

iPhones are more than just mobile phones,  they have become now a craze in the society with high-demand of the popularity and whose ranking is always higher than Android. This revolution first began in the year of 2007 and at that time, people have become somewhat obsessed with the idea of the latest mobile version. The formation of iPhones increased the overall global smartphone sales by a stark 13.2% according to Statistics. The reason for this popularity is it’s elite and premium status. Towards the end of 2017, an estimate of 78% of all teens in America owned an iPhone and over 80% of teens claimed that they were planning on their next mobile device to be iOS devices.  The best mobile app development companies working on this latest technology to get better results.

What is Swift?

Apple created Swift as a multi-paradigm programming language for general purposes so that it could develop its own iOS devices that contain the same ecosystem in June 2014.  The apps are created with Swift that can program to run a variety of iOS devices such as tvOS, z/OS, watchOS and macOS.  Apache License that makes it a language accessible for the whole community currently licenses is Swift.

Why you should use it?

Swift is a compiled programming language for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux applications. Here is what you need to know about Swift.

Created by Apple in 2014

One of the most influential tech companies in the world backs it up; Swift is set to become the dominant language for iOS development and beyond.

Open-source

Swift creators acknowledged the fact that in order to build a defining programming language, the technology needs to be open for all. Therefore, within its three years of existence, Swift acquired a large supportive community and an abundance of third-party tools.

Safe

Its syntax encourages you to write clean and consistent code which may even feel strict at times. Swift provides safeguards to prevent errors and improve readability.

Fast

Swift was built with performance in mind. Not only does its simple syntax and hand-holding help you develop faster, but it also lives up to its name: as stated on apple.com, Swift is 2.6x faster than Objective-C and 8.4x faster than Python.

Advantages of the SWIFT Language

 1. Rapid Development Process

A clean and expressive language with a simplified syntax and grammar, Swift is easier to read and write. It is very concise, which means less code is required to perform the same task, as compared to Objective-C. Moreover, the app now featured a new onboarding process: While the old one took more than a month and multiple engineers to implement, the new onboarding with Swift was completed within a week with only one engineer.

2. Easier to scale the product and the team

In addition to faster development time, you get a product that is future-proof and can be extended with new features as needed. Thus, Swift projects are typically easier to scale. The fact that Apple is more likely to support Swift than Objective-C should also get serious consideration for long-term investment. Moreover, Swift allows you to add more developers to your team if needed: The onboarding is relatively fast due to the simplicity and conciseness of the codebase.

3. Improved safety and performance

With attention on performance and speed, the language was initially designed to outperform its predecessor. Specifically, the initial release claimed a 40% increase in performance, as compared to Objective-C. Over the years, multiple benchmarks and tests conducted by individual developers have proved that. Moreover, there are many ways to optimize the Swift code for even better performance.

4. Automatic memory management

Swift uses Automatic Memory Counting (ARC) – a technology aimed to add a garbage collector function that was not introduced to iOS before. Languages like Java, C#, and Go use garbage collectors to delete class instances that are no longer used. They are useful to decrease your memory footprint but can add up to 20 percent to CPU.

What is React Native?

React Native was invented by Facebook so that device-agnostic mobile applications may be creative.  React Native differs from the traditional applications that require s different programming languages for every new platform. Since this programming language works on JavaScript, developers using this language may effortlessly share the code that is used on one platform on the other platform that includes iOS web apps and Android apps.  These developers are not talented to share the entire code; they can share up to 70% of it to a different platform. This type of sharing significantly reduces the development time organizations have to allot when it comes to cross-platform mobile app development. It also saves cost!

Why React Native is so popular?

With React Native Framework, you can reduce UI for both iOS and Android platforms.

It is an open-source framework, which could be well matched with other platforms like Windows or tvOS in the near future.

Since React Native modules have the complement rights, you can reuse these components for building both Android and iOS apps.

You can either include REACT Native components into the code of the existing app or reuse the Cordova-based code using the plugin as well. However, your existing app must be built with Cordova and Ionic code.

React Native Development is moderately simple, quick and efficient.

REACT Native is a great pick for those developers who have expertise in JavaScript as there is no need to learn Android specific Java or iOS’s Swift.

Why ReactNative is used?

No doubt, ReactNative is highly popular these days.  The main reasons are:

1. Use of Cross-platform

The REACT Native apps can be developed via using a single codebase for both the platforms simultaneously, which increased its popularity even more.

2. Class Performance

At the initial stages, ‘hybrid’ or ‘mobile web’ apps were popular for their uncommonness mainly. However, when it comes to performance, apps are complex, the more lags it experienced.

3. Fast Process

Other benefits of using REACT Native Framework include its faster development, ability to reuse components and ease to be maintained.

Overview of React Native

• React Native comes with Random access Module Building, Native Parallel Fetching, Inline Require, RAM bundles and some more that are inbuilt in the network.
• The time required to build a react native app is comparatively less as the time required to build a Swift App.
• This framework often comes with challenges that have to be fought with while coding like Enabling Push notifications in application, out of memory problems, frequent crashes and overhead caused due to injecting the JavaScript bundle into JavaScript Core (the VM used by React Native by both React Native on iOS and Android) and instantiating native modules and view managers.
• This framework features hot or instant reloading where developments changes are instantly reflected on the underlying interface which has been edited during runtime. This preserves all of the states particularly at the time when the developers are working on the UI.
• The mobile apps developed with React Native tend to assign more memory as compared to ones developed with Swift.
• Cost Mobile app development uses the React Native framework that is certainly cost-effective and a short development cycle as well.
• React Native is moderately much easier to learn and suitable to fix thereby making the training part for the companies much easier as well.
• On the other hand, React Native uses JavaScript as a power behind the scene and leverages the internal APIs to run native elements. Thus, the user interface is indistinguishable with the native one, yet easier to code.
• React Native apps can be used and presented across screens of all sizes due to JavaScript.
• React Native utilizes CPU in a better way but dealing with graphical effects may be more troublesome for the framework. It also enables developers to embed the native code into the app, delivering the code chimera using different tools and assets to deal with different tasks.

React Native vs. Swift – What Makes a Comparison Necessary

Our world has created a necessity for smartphones that have permitted them to be more than just a tool and a means to an end. One simply cannot function without a smartphone any longer, as it is now a part of our lifestyles. It is based on data derived from the IDC, 80% of all mobile phone owners have a habit to check their phones every 15 minutes, especially after they have just woken up.

Yes, we do despicable they do this before even freshening up in the morning! It may sound curious until you notice that you do this as well.

Instead of this fact, creating mobile applications is an expensive business and occasionally it can be more than administrations can even stand. Then there is the difficulty of cross-platform applications also known as Hybrid apps, which cost even more than the outdated apps designed for one platform.

Moreover, when a developer is building an application, he must deliberate both Android and iOS devices and make an application that will work flawlessly on both platforms simultaneously, for that drive a most durable platform must be chosen! Could it be React Native or is Swift the right fit?

React Native is a UI focused which makes the apps load quickly and gives a smoother feel.

Another reason why the REACT Native framework has gained popularity in recent years is that the framework helps cater to both the platforms at one go and ends the holy war of selecting either iOS or Android development for mobile developers. Hence, giant companies like Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Airbnb, Tesla, Walmart, Baidu Mobile, Bloomberg, UberEATS Vogue and many more have shifted their eyeballs towards it.

When is native mobile development better?

1. Apps with complex user interfaces

JavaScript allows making smooth and fast apps. The already established building platforms, which are native to the Android and iOS- Java, Objective-C, and Swift, are the better apps that are the resources-intensive. If your app’s user interface needs a lot of interactions, then React Native is most likely not the best choice for you.  Think of messaging apps, which usually allow for a high degree of customization and it a lot of background processes going on at any given moment.

2. Apps that are designed for a single OS

There are a number of apps that you can only download on your iPhone or Android device.  Tasker is an application that performs tasks based on context (time, location, gesture etc.) in user-defined profiles. Created by João Dias, the app is exclusively available on Android devices.

3. Utilities and media players

Apps like battery monitors, antivirus software, brightness regulators, and media players can be oblique much more easily using native languages. Applications from that category usually use native features and APIs provided by the underlying platform. Writing native wrappers for APIs and components in those types of apps would take much more time than using native components.

Overview of Swift

• Swift is a native iOS programming language or framework that allows building a mobile app from scratch. As compare to the React Native, where the same code is applicable across platforms – Android or iOS.
• Swift assimilates and controls all the iOS UX principles.
•  The coding speed and CPU performance are slightly different on a lower scale as compared to the React Native.
• Swift incorporates the use of Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) improvements that help reduce the time the developer could spend in avoiding frequent memory leaks in the app.
• Swift is designed for ensuring safety.
• It is easy to understand, has interactive code and is easy to learn.
• Swift provides safe memory management, optional, type interference and simple but has strict inheritance rules.
• Swift can be composed only into dynamic frameworks. It can inherit Cocoa APIs as it supports Objective C files, within the same project.

Similarities between Swift and react-native

Both application development platforms can be used to generate native mobile apps. Moreover, both these tools can speed up the coding. Both React Native and Swift can be used to create intuitive and responsive interfaces that are stylish, interactive, and effective.

Why is a comparison between react native and swift necessary?

Most of the web apps wrapped in a native container.  It complies with  JavaScript code to a mobile app similar to an iOS app built with the objective-C or Android using Java, Reacts Native (RN) has the double advantage of enabling the development of both native as well as hybrid technology.  It also enables the development of both big as well as small projects. A clear comparison between React Native (RN) and Swift can disclose the actual benefits.

Wrapping Up

Apple backs Swift and Facebook backs React Native. It is considered as a fast step than Objective C, following all OOPS programming ideas and backing up most of the iPhone applications. React Native is not producing native applications. It can be used to write code that works across platforms. It works great by leveraging the internal API’s and libraries to make the app work. This is more about adding an intermediary between the code and the platform.

On the other hand, Swift produces a native app that may leverage all the platform’s possibilities. This framework performs better with the graphic effects and to compute the heavy tasks. Although Swift can create highly performing applications, it is not helpful with code optimization.

JavaScript works as a back-end behind the JavaScript that makes coding and debugging easy. It further helps in the compilation of the JavaScript codebase to a mobile application similar to an iOS application built with Java for Android or Objective C/Swift (for iOS). These uplifts React Native app development between React Native vs. Swift.

You can consult the best mobile app development in India to build your app either in Swift or React Native according to your requirements.

Read more: Grow Your Business With Best iOS Apps