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React Native 0.59 RC0 is now out with React Hooks, and more

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Last week, Dan Abramov, one of the React developers, while announcing the release of React 16.8, shared that React Native 0.59 will be released with Hooks. The team was waiting for Hooks to land in React’s stable version before they support it in the next release of React Native. Today, they have released React Native 0.59 RC0, which along with React Hooks, ships with extracted React Native CLI, major QoL improvements, and more.

Here are some of the major changes this version will come with:

As mentioned earlier, React Native 0.59 will come with React Hooks. This feature allows you to “hook into” or use React state and other lifecycle features via function components.
The React Native GitHub repo was quite big, and that is why the team decided to move some of the components to separate repos. As a result, the React Native CLI now has separate repository. The team has also removed WebView from the React Native code. Now developers need to use its extracted version.
Though the team has not shared which exact components will be deprecated in the release notes, this version will surely deprecate quite a few components.
Along with these changes, many QoL improvements have been made on the native Android side such as 64 bits support via a new JSC, AppCompatActivity, etc.

As this is not a stable release, developers are recommended not to upgrade to React Native 0.59 unless they want to collaborate in testing.

To know more in detail, check out React Native’s release notes.