Shadowing Practice: Is React Native Dead? Shopify Is Leaving - Learn English Speaking with Video

Shopify just announced that they are moving all of their mobile applications from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin.

If you build with React Native, this is a pretty big headline to wake up to because Shopify has contributed to the React Native ecosystem for years,

including packages like React Native's Kia, Flashlist, and Restyle.

So whether you like it or not, this announcement carries weight.

Personally, it reminds me of the Airbnb moving away from React Native in 2018.

Even when I was working at Expo in 2025, I still heard people cite that decision as a reason they wouldn't give React Native a try.

Yeah, seven years later.

I hope we don't see that this time.

Because React Native has come a long way and Shopify is making this decision under very different circumstances.

So here's the official announcement from Mustafa.

He is the director of engineering and head of mobile at Shopify.

So in this announcement, Mustafa says

that the shop application already made the transition going from proof of concept to native application in the stores in 12 weeks.

Now if you've worked at a big company you know

that 12 weeks it's pretty damn good and the main Shopee 5 application is underway with the rest to follow.

So is React Native dead?

Personally I don't think so.

I still see a lot of value in React Native

but I also want to be honest about where mobile development is going because I've been experimenting with new models, including GPT-6 Astra.

And in my own test, they've become much better at working through multiple steps and checking their work.

And that makes building in an unfamiliar stack feel more approachable.

So my first reaction to this blog post is that this actually makes sense.

If an agent can help you build the Android equivalent of an iOS feature, the old argument about doing everything twice deserves another look.

So here's the full article of my grading shop app from react native to native

and I think there is a solid argument here.

Let's take a look at the details before we decide what this means for our applications.

Now let's start by mentioning that Shopify was already using native code

and then they decided to move to React Native

which it's also native I don't understand why they are saying native

but anyway so they moved to React Native in 2020 they were sharing code

and they were pretty successful made it easier for engineers to contribute across platforms and reduce the work of keeping features aligned.

So overall in this article, Mustafa mentions that the experience of working with React Native

and the benefits that they got by just migrating from native was great, at least in 2020.

So here's the TLDR.

The agents have reduced the cost of separate Swift and Kotlin implementations enough to change Shopify's decision.

Direct access to platform APIs and tools now carries more weight.

And he's also acknowledging that building separate projects for iOS and Android still has extra cost, right?

That hasn't changed.

But agents made it reasonable to reconsider that decision.

So for Shopify specifically, this decision happened as the team was evaluating the work required to adopt React Native's new architecture.

That gave them a concrete choice about where to spend engineering time.

The context matters.

If your application is already running well on a current React Native stack, you might be facing a very different decision by the way

so let's take a look at the results

that they achieved by moving to native now the startup time

of ios is faster down to 2.4 seconds i believe

and with react native it was 3.2 now on android it

is honestly a pretty big difference now on native using get

back on bose is 2.2 seconds versus 4.4 seconds um with react native that's uh you know, 50%.

Yeah, here's a 50% and 23% on iOS.

Now, app size, I've actually seen many teams complaining about the app size.

Again, I'm not entirely sure why Android is super huge on React Native, but I'm guessing, you know, like the React Native actual package and some of the essential,

you know, tooling to run a React Native application on Android.

But here the difference was 37%.

When native is 184 megabytes versus React Native, almost 300 megabytes.

iOS is actually not a big difference.

It's actually close one megabyte native.

Android release build time fell approximately 75%.

On iOS, release builds are taking about the same amount of time.

Let's take a look at the Android runtime performance.

So they were able to run basically the Android application at 120 frames per second, which is, you know, highly performance.

Yeah, I mean, the app looks pretty smooth.

Now there's something important to highlight here is that this comparison changes several things at once.

Language, architecture, dependencies

and parts of the product it cannot really tell us how much of the improvement came from each change

and another very important thing to highlight here is

that we are not getting a comparison with a react native application

that is actually using the new architecture

and also the article leaves the question of

which devices were measured over what period and how much the results varied

so i wouldn't treat these numbers as a general react native

benchmark now don't get me wrong i think this is a great achievement but before taking a decision like this, I would try to measure my application before expecting the same results.

Another thing that stood out to me is Shopify's warning about asking an agent to rewrite the whole application in one go.

Its strategy article says those attempts produce code it could not maintain or ship.

They are using a Helix workflow, which breaks the work into small checkpoints, and each one needs tests, a visual comparison with the running application,

two code reviewers looking for problems and a human approval.

They also separate business logic from the UI so agents can test it quickly from the command line.

And overall, they say that at the end of the day, native expertise was still essential.

You still need people that actually know how native works, iOS and Android.

So my takeaway is that AI makes working across stacks more approachable.

In fact, I've been building native macOS applications, utilities for me.

I actually tried building Inkigo, my AI tattoo application, fully on iOS using, of course, AI.

And I had a great experience.

My application looked great.

I was able to integrate authentication, reutilize some of the APIs that I already had.

Although you still need a way to describe the correct behavior, inspect the result and catch the cases that the agent missed.

Now there's another side of this that I think is easy to miss.

AI is not taking your job.

AI is actually increasing what's expected of an engineer.

So if you've been building with React Native, a move like this can mean learning enough about iOS and Android to review and maintain the native applications.

If you specialize in iOS, you might now be asked to contribute on Android too.

Why?

Because an agent can help you.

But someone still needs to check that it actually works like a human, not an agent.

And that human needs to take responsibility when it doesn't, because you cannot blame an agent.

So I can see how AI expands the job even when individual tasks get faster?

Time saved on implementation can become time spent learning another platform, reviewing more code, or taking on another part of the product.

That doesn't tell us whether Shopify's engineers are working longer hours.

My point is that the scope of the job can grow.

100

AI making something possible can quickly become a reason to expect you to do it.

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And that's also worth noticing when we talk about AI saving developers time.

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Now, when more of the job becomes explaining what we want the agent to do, how we give it context starts to matter.

103

So here's a small example using Voice OS.

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You can just press on the input and press FN, hold it, start speaking, and it recognizes the application that you're working on, as you can see here at the bottom.

105

And as soon as I release the FN key, it will paste the text and I can hit send.

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Now, you're probably already familiar with speech to text tools.

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We have them everywhere, but VoiceOS, it's different because it can take action.

108

And let's say that you have a bunch of applications and you quickly want to open a specific app.

109

So I'm going to press Control Option, open Chrome, release, and it's going to just open it directly.

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There we have it.

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Now, here's a more concrete example.

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So I'm working on this application here with Cloud.

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Sometimes you might want to just make it bigger, immerse yourself within the experience.

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And I don't know, let's say that we want to change this icon

115

so I can dispatch a task by pressing control option and just circle here with my mouse and say

116

can you please change this icon to be a gear for example dispatch the task with cloud code

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and then release dispatching task to change icon to gear using cloud code there we go

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so it's going to do it and after a moment I get the gear icon

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so didn't have to move okay

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so here we have the summary you can ask a follow-up literally the use case are

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so many you can just dispatch tasks

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while doing other things the speech to text functionality is super high quality

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and fast so

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if you want to be more productive make sure to check

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out voice os the link is in the description now i was just telling you

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that ai is actually increasing the amount of work

127

that you have to get done now right

128

but this also applies to everyone so if we actually take a deeper look at popular frameworks like Expo,

129

if we go to the landing page here in the Expo Application Services offerings,

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you can see that they are telling us that they support Swift and Jetpack Compose and Kotlin.

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Now, Expo are not the only ones.

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For example, Software Mention, in their recent packages that they have released,

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they are supporting fully natively packages for Swift and Kotlin as well, and of course React Native.

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Other companies that provide CICD services for React Native like Bitrise have supported other platforms for a long time.

135

There's actually a platform breakdown of their services.

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React Native 13% and as you can see just native Android and iOS is just way bigger.

137

That tells me these companies see an opportunity to serve mobile developers across stacks.

138

Offering native tools doesn't mean they are leaving React Native.

139

Another example is CodeMagic, another big company that provides CI-CD services for React Native.

140

So in 2020, they announced that they were going to provide CI-CD services for native iOS, Android, and React Native applications.

141

So native support has been part of their business for years.

142

Meanwhile, we also have Expo UI, which lets us use SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose components.

143

And Expo also introduced inline native modules in SDK 56, making it easier to place Swift and Kotlin alongside your React Native application.

144

So there is another path worth considering, keeping the shared parts of your application and use more native code where it actually helps.

145

And this is especially relevant with the AI argument

146

because AI can also help you to create amazing native modules and just bring any native integration that you need.

147

So the benefit of agents can apply to both approaches.

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Now, on the other hand, Apple introduced the iPhone Duo on September 9, which is a foldable iPhone, it's a good example of why being close to the platform can be valuable.

149

Apple's design guidance says that apps using the standard system components

150

and already designed for resizing can add up with a little adjustment.

151

The operating system can handle parts of that transition for you.

152

And this is the real benefit of using the platform's components.

153

But the conditions matter because Apple asks developers to check layouts and custom UI.

154

So if you're using React Native, you don't have to worry about the foldable phone because as long as you stay close to the native primitives, your application is going to look nice.

155

And now for APIs that are not supported yet, You can wait for someone to create a library

156

or for Expo to upgrade Expo

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or the React Native team to bring a new version that is going to support all these latest and greatest APIs.

158

Or you can actually contribute because it's open source.

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But I think the useful question here is how much platform integration work your product requires

160

and who is going to own it.

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Now, like I said at the beginning, Shopify has been a great contributor to the React Native ecosystem.

162

So now that they are moving to native, what is going to happen to their platforms?

163

So according to the announcement for React Native Skia, Shopify is going to continue sponsoring it through 2026.

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So this is the last year.

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And then William Candilon plans to continue the maintenance through a fork

166

and a new package name with the original repository archived after the transition.

167

Now for Flashlist, which is another popular package, Shopify will fix critical compatibility issues while discussing long-term maintenance with other companies.

168

So a successor is not named yet in this article.

169

For Restyle, Shopify plans to archive this repository, keep it working through this year, 2026, then end the maintenance.

170

A handover might be possible, but I don't know, we'll see.

171

If you depend on these packages, you can follow the migration notices in their documentation.

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They didn't mention any specific, you know, recommended replacement yet.

173

So keep an eye on that.

174

Okay.

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If you made it this far, thank you so much.

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Here's my take.

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I don't think React Native is dead.

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And this doesn't change the value I see in learning and building with it.

179

Shopify is actually giving us a really serious example of what agents can help a team do.

180

It also gives us a reason to revisit the assumption that two native applications are automatically too expensive to maintain.

181

I understand the appeal, use the platform tools directly, get help with unfamiliar syntax, and spend more time on the experience you want to build.

182

But at the same time, React Native still gives you a shared application layer across iOS and Android.

183

And if you already know React and that shared code helps you ship and maintain your application, that's a real advantage.

184

I wouldn't dismiss it because another company made a different decision.

185

You can also keep React Native and add native code for the parts that need it.

186

If you want to learn more about deeper native integrations, make sure to check out my course, by the way.

187

Now, but there is a cost here.

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A custom native module can mean maintaining Swift code and Kotlin code, and then the interface that connects them to your React Native application.

189

So that interface adds work, but it isn't a third party full implementation.

190

The rest of the application might still be shared.

191

Now for apps whose main value depend on the platform integration, I would give Swift and Kotlin a closer look.

192

And for a team that benefits from sharing code, React Native still makes a lot of sense.

193

Better agents can help you with both.

194

If you already have a React Native application and are curious about migrating

195

or just starting from scratch on iOS and Android version, I would measure the problem before committing to a full rewrite, even with AI.

196

And I guess that's what I want people to take from this, get comfortable enough with the platform to evaluate these choices yourself.

197

That knowledge makes you a better React Native developer too.

198

The skill I want to keep building is the ability to ship and maintain a good mobile application wherever the implementation lives.

199

If you want to get a really solid understanding of React Native, make sure to check out my course.

200

The link is in the description as well.

201

Don't forget to try out Vision OS.

202

Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.

✨ Recommend Video

74 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 202 sentences and 2748 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:11. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

react /ɹiːˈækt/ (verb) — To act in response.
android /ˈænˌdɹɔɪd/ (noun) — A robot that is designed to look and act like a human being (not necessarily a male one).
package /ˈpæk.ɪd͡ʒ/ (noun) — Something which is packed, a parcel, a box, an envelope.
contribute /kənˈtɹɪb.jut/ (verb) — To give something that is or becomes part of a larger whole.
announcement /əˈnaʊns.mənt/ (noun) — An act of announcing, or giving notice.
implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/ (noun) — The process of moving an idea from concept to reality. In business, engineering and other fields, implementation refers to the building process rather than the…
integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/ (noun) — The act or process of making whole or entire.
developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/ (noun) — A person or entity engaged in the creation or improvement of certain classes of products.
icon /ˈaɪ.kɑn/ (noun) — An image, symbol, picture, portrait, or other representation, usually as an object of religious devotion.
stack /stæk/ (noun) — A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch.
dispatch /dɪˈspæt͡ʃ/ (verb) — To send (a shipment) with promptness.
cloud /ˈklaʊ̯d/ (noun) — A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
gear /ɡɪɚ/ (noun) — Equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.
transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/ (noun) — The process of change from one form, state, style or place to another.
architecture /ˈɑː.kɪˌtɛk.t͡ʃə/ (noun) — The art and science of designing and managing the construction of buildings and other structures, particularly if they are well proportioned and decorated.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
check out (verb) — To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
work at (verb) — To make a physical or mental effort to progress some specified task; to endeavor or struggle on an issue or project.
work on (verb) — To apply mental or physical effort to (something) in order to shape, form, improve, investigate, solve it, etc.
work through (verb) — To get past a difficult or stressful situation by thinking or talking about it.
build in /bɪldˈɪn/ (verb) — to add components to a larger entity without interfering with the purpose or functionality of the larger entity
come from (verb) — To have as one's origin, birthplace or nationality.
follow up (verb) — To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 35 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: smooth /smuːð/, authentication /ɔːˌθɛntɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, migration /maɪˈɡɹeɪʃ(ə)n/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/
Long words — get the stress right: implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/, architecture /ˈɑː.kɪˌtɛk.t͡ʃə/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like react, android, package.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been experimenting · I've been building · you've been building
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has contributed · has come · you've worked
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were measured · be asked · are not supported
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	second, which is · Flashlist, which is

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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