React Universe On Air

Some animations do not need a full animation engine. Sometimes you just want a view to fade in, translate, or move slowly without burning frame budget every time the UI thread gets busy.

Łukasz Chludziński talks with Janic Duplessis from App & Flow about React Native Ease, a small animation library built around platform-native primitives. They cover early React Native days, why Reanimated is still the right tool for complex interactions, and where a simpler React-like API can make sense.

Key takeaways:

- Why React Native Ease was created and what problem it solves
- How Core Animation can run animations outside the UI thread on iOS
- Why simple transitions do not always need Reanimated’s full flexibility
- Where Reanimated remains the right tool, especially for gestures and complex interactions
- How animation performance relates to frame budget, not just visible frame drops
- Why React Native’s maturity shifts more innovation into third-party libraries
- How focused open-source tools can push the whole ecosystem forward

Guest introduction:

Janic Duplessis is a developer at App & Flow and the creator of React Native Ease. He has been working with React Native since the early iOS-only days and has contributed to React Native Core, including work around animation internals and native-driver concepts.

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Rudrank Riyam joins React Universe On Air to talk about App Store Connect CLI, an open-source tool for automating App Store Connect workflows without living in the dashboard.

What started as a way to pull TestFlight feedback turned into a broader interface for metadata, submissions, localization, analytics, reviews, and release operations. Mike Grabowski and Rudrank discuss why these workflows are a strong fit for CLI automation, why Go became the right language for an agent-built tool, how teams are using it in CI/CD and agent workflows, and what changes when multiple coding agents build against the same codebase.

They also get into code structure, command design, agents.md, public vs. private App Store Connect endpoints, and what changed after Rork acquired the project while keeping it open source.

What we cover:

- Why App Store Connect workflows are a good fit for CLI automation
- How the tool handles TestFlight feedback, metadata, localization, analytics, reviews, and submissions
- Why Rudrank chose Go over Swift for an agent-built CLI
- What he learned from running multiple agents against one open-source project
- How clear structure and command naming make a codebase easier for both humans and agents
- What Rork’s acquisition means for the project going forward

Guest: Rudrank Riyam is a software engineer at Rork and the creator of App Store Connect CLI. He works at the intersection of Apple development, release tooling, and agentic workflows.

Zack Ebenfeld joins Michał Pierzchała to talk about AI-assisted coding, testing, QA, code review, and why verification matters more than ever in mobile workflows. It is a practical conversation about trust, feedback loops, and how engineering work is shifting from pure implementation toward judgment, architecture, and product thinking.

What happens when you combine voice agents and teddy bears? A hands-on look at local-first systems, voice AI, and security lessons from poking real apps. Kraen Hansen and Ola Desmurs-Linczewska talk about Software, AI Agents, parenting, stoicism and more!

Vercel’s v0 iOS app is built with React Native, but it looks and feels like a fully native iOS product.

In this episode of React Universe On Air, we go deep into how the v0 mobile app was built: from choosing Expo and going iOS-first, to writing native modules, fixing low-level React Native issues, and upstreaming improvements back to the ecosystem. This is a hands-on engineering conversation with Fernando Rojo, Szymon Rybczak, and Oskar kwaśniewski about real trade-offs, real constraints, and what it takes to ship a polished app under real deadlines.

Chapters
00:00 Welcome to the React Universe
00:50 Meet our guests
02:42 v0 app overview
03:45 Iterating to greatness
05:07 Choosing Expo and initial tech decisions
07:55 Code sharing with v0 website
11:03 Open Source contributions
13:20 React Native Core fixes
15:40 Android version?
18:42 Modal issues we fixed
23:20 Working with React Native Core
26:16 Balancing deadlines and root cause analysis
27:23 Native Modules and custom solutions
29:16 Minimalistic UI challenges
30:44 Floating Composer concept
33:41 Feature flags and testing
36:48 WebView swiping and custom forks
45:16 Launch experience and security concerns
50:17 Final thoughts