Microsoft and Facebook are working together to support React Native

By Sean Endicott
published

Facebook is working with Microsoft to improve the native experiences on desktops for React Native apps.

Messenger Beta Windows 10
Messenger Beta Windows 10 (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Facebook and Microsoft are working together to support React Native Windows and macOS.
  • Facebook's desktop Messenger app on Windows and macOS is built with React Native.
  • A new sub-team at Facebook is being created to support React Native Windows and macOS.

Facebook and Microsoft are working together to improve the Facebook experience on Windows and macOS. The React Native Twitter account shared a Twitter thread earlier today about the joint effort of Microsoft and Facebook. The aim is to improve React native to "enable delightful native experiences on desktop."

Specifically, the React Native team at Facebook is creating a new sub-team that supports React Native Windows and macOS. That team is built in collaboration with Microsoft. The thread also points out that React Native is hiring.

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Facebook's Messenger app on desktop, meaning both Windows and macOS, is built with React Native. In the thread, the React Native account states that it is "thrilled to bring React Native to more platforms." Improvements that are built for desktop will also improve the mobile and web experience of React Native, according to the thread.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

4 Comments
  • It's funny to me how Microsoft uses third party frameworks to make apps for it's own platform.
  • Why? Frameworks are nothing more than a culmination of commons operations in a form of an API. Building more desktop or thick client applications using that framework still depend on core windows libraries. And that being said, it drives more adoption to their overall platform which is still always a win. Don't you remember the entire Balmer, "Developers, developers, developers" speech? It is all about third party!
  • To me it just sends the message that they don’t have the tools necessary to build apps to their own OS. It comes off as lazy, and the apps don’t work great at all. The Xbox Beta app is awful and Skype is far from great. And I’m not sure that what Ballmer was hammering was about anything like that.
  • >Facebook's Messenger app on desktop, meaning both Windows and macOS, is built with React Native It's technically React Native, but in reality it's just an Electron app. It's like calling the current (Aug 2020) Skype app a React Native app. It's not really a React Native app because it doesn't use React Native Windows.