Setting up the example app
Ah! The moment you’ve probably been waiting for: actually creating an app!
We will start by preparing our development environment. You will need an integrated development environment (IDE) such as VS Code, Sublime Text, Atom, or anything else you may prefer. An IDE is all you need to write React Native code. But we also need a way to see what the code renders, don’t we?
In the case of web development, we would simply use the browser to see and test our code. However, React Native apps cannot be easily tested in a web browser. They can and should be tested on real or simulated devices. In an ideal situation, you would have access to multiple phones, which you would plug into your computer via a USB in order to see your app. Most of us don’t have multiple phones, though. That’s why we can use phone simulators. There are two major players in the mobile world: Android and Apple. Android simulators are available for virtually...