Case Starmirror: A Web Dev’s Take on React Native in 2025

Earlier this year we got to build Starmirror, a photography game app for Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s new exhibition. The idea: let the public help expand the public domain image dataset PD40M. We had just three weeks to ship it for iOS and Android, packing in camera features, geolocation, audio, and OpenGL shaders.

It was my first proper return to native dev in a few years, and I found that a lot has improved. The DX is surprisingly decent now. But plenty of annoyances remain. In this talk, I’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and what I feel a modern web dev should know when they consider diving into React Native.