[AJRF]

(Context: I was an iOS dev for 10 years on well known, large iOS apps - I can't explain how much I dislike Xcode).

I recently started working for a startup, and they wanted an app.

What I shipped was a react native app (so I don't need to go in to Xcode to build), that renders a full screen web browser that points to our website. I've sprinkled in bits of injected JS to capture our cookies and local/session storage - which then gets saved to device storage and reinjected on app startup.

There are a few native-ish bits sprinkled in - onboarding, notifications, error screens, loading indicators, etc - but for the most part we don't need to worry about our API borking old versions (which is moving extraordinarily fast).

The only semi tricky bit was native auth integration - that needs treated with a bit more care, and stored securely, but it took a few days.

I ship the app to TestFlight and the AppStore using Fastlane from the command line, match handles the certs, and I never have to open Xcode.

It is honestly bliss, and i've heard a lot of app developers moving to this model (interestingly it normally follows a failed SDUX implementation)

[sandoze]

That startup is going to LOVE you when they need to backfill your position and every potential iOS developer hire runs in the other direction.

* This is coming from someone doing iOS since the store opened in 2008. I've pretty much seen ALL the bad decisions at some point. There are projects I will not take no matter what the pay is.

[AJRF]

Do you think the pool of devs who can write rn + ts is bigger or smaller than native devs?

[Aaargh20318]

> (Context: I was an iOS dev for 10 years on well known, large iOS apps - I can't explain how much I dislike Xcode).

Since you’re pretty new to mobile dev, count yourself lucky with the amazing dev tools you have today. Nothing like doing a bit of J2ME, Symbian S60 or BlackBerry development to learn to appreciate how far we’ve come.

[AJRF]

Ha! Curious - as an old timer, how you enjoying this new vibe coding world?

[ardit33]

lol... people that complain about XCode don't know how well they have compare to what it was before.

I started my work on the J2ME era as well. Had to use textpad for development, and maybe eclipse at some point (which was pretty decent). Tools and simulators were all over the place.

[elpakal]

Does fastlane still hang for a little before every command? I used to optimize build pipelines for a large company's iOS teams and it always seemed to stall for a little before doing the work. We eventually moved to Xcode Cloud (mainly to avoid code signing) and ran xcodebuild directly.

[g105b]

I would love more information on your setup. I want what you have, but I've skipped the app release because I thought xcode was required, and last time I used it it hurt me.

[solids]

Curious to hear if you had any trouble passing review.

[AJRF]

Zero so far - we've never had a single ding in 30+ submissions. Will update here if we do.

[MoonWalk]

Whatever "SDUX" is...

[AJRF]

server driven user experience - server controls components, layout and navigation so teams "can ship quick".

every client ends up writing a parser, and then teams fight over who is responsible for doing work.

how good does that sound!