Can React Native Animations Be Simpler and Faster? | 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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