Why cross-platform isn’t the compromise it used to be

There’s no magic formula for building a great subscription app business, but there are some common ingredients. Not only do you need good business sense (and maybe a little luck), but choosing the right development frameworks and tools can make all the difference. 

This week on the Sub Club podcast, we’re joined by Expo co-founder and CEO Charlie Cheever. Expo makes mobile app development more accessible by enabling developers to create apps and websites that run cross-platform using React. We chatted with Charlie about why React Native has become the default for VC-funded apps, how AI is accelerating development cycles, and why speed of iteration matters more than programming language.

Lightning-fast iteration

One of the most striking and powerful things about developing with Expo is how much it speeds up product development times. As Charlie points out, “The sort of nasty thing about compiled apps is that … when you have a white screen with one thing of black text … compilation is pretty quick, but then when you get to six or seven screens, all of a sudden that’s now 45 seconds or 1 minute 45. And with these huge, sprawling apps like Uber, it takes 45 minutes plus to compile the app. The idea that you can just make a quick change, you save it, and now that UI is now updated on your phone or in your simulator or whatever right away… that just feels so much better.”

With Expo and React Native, development teams no longer have to endure long minutes or hours for their app to compile each time they test and verify code changes. Instead, teams can experiment, test, and improve their apps instantly — allowing app businesses to innovate and deploy faster.

Unified tech stack

For years, teams have built natively on one platform (iOS, Android, or web) and then launched different platform versions of their app later. But as Charlie points out, this has historically led to both a messy user experience — with frustrating variations across platforms — and required teams to hire multiple, platform-specific developers. But this pattern is starting to change. “People want basically the same product on iOS and Android and web,” Charlie said. “When I use the United Airlines app on my phone, whether it’s on my iPhone or my Android phone or the mobile website or the website, it’s basically the same product, same design language. Things are all in basically the same places. Why doesn’t our implementation match the way that we’re actually building the product?”

With React Native, app businesses can build a consistent product experience across all platforms, streamline hiring, and maintain a unified code base. Case in point: Twitter competitor Bluesky was built for iOS, Android, and web by one developer in just four months.

Coding with AI

AI is not-so-slowly changing the way we do lots of things, including building software. These days, AI tools like Claude and GitHub Copilot take a lot of the legwork out of writing code and building features. According to Charlie, “One of the reasons that these LLMs are quite good at writing code … is because they can generate output and then run the code and tell if it worked.”

With these assistive tools, developers are freed up to focus on more creative tasks like making higher-level UX decisions and solving complex problems. The speed of AI coupled with human ingenuity gives today’s developers an edge.

Conclusion

Want to learn more about how Expo is accelerating innovation and growth for app businesses around the world? Check out our full conversation with Charlie in the latest episode of the Sub Club podcast.