This week is rather quiet on the web side. Astro's React integration keeps ramping up. Redux is working on significant performance improvements for large apps.
On mobile, we still have a steady flow of interesting releases. Reanimated enabled its new layout engine by default. Shopify presented Helix, its internal tool to move away from RN. Xcode project format is finally moving to JSON!
We asked on π: do average devs still care about React?β Thanks to everyone who answered our existential question! If fewer devs care about implementation details and React, what's the future of this newsletter? π€·ββοΈ Reply by email and tell us how we can best serve you in this new AI-driven world.
Agents ship React features faster than ever. They also ship unindexed queries, N+1s, and schema decisions made at 2am by a model that will never get paged.
Fortunately, agents can fix database problems too. They just need production data, and that's what the PlanetScale MCP server gives them. Hook up an agent, and the loop looks like this:
PlanetScale flags a slow query
The agent traces it back to the code in your repo
The agent opens a PR with the fix
You review and merge
Run it once, or put it on a schedule.
Underneath it all: the fastest, most scalable cloud Postgres and MySQL, with options like PlanetScale Metal when you need peak performance. Fast databases, fast React apps.
π React docs - New <img> API ref page - The humble image component does more than just displaying images. It also generates preload hints during SSR by default, and integrates nicely with animations.
π Next.js 16.3.6 - Security Update - Fixing a critical remote code execution vulnerability for those using ImageResponse with the Node runtime with dynamic user-controlled SVG inputs.
ποΈ React Advanced London - π¬π§ London - 23 & 26 Oct. Last call for London's most in-depth React conference! Two days, 50+ advanced sessions, next to Big Ben. Don't miss itβget 10% off with code "TWIR.
π Do Frameworks Matter Anymore? - If LLMs are great at React but nobody reads the .tsx files anymore, why even use an abstraction? Will the industry stick with React forever, or is there room for platform primitives (Web Components) and new ideas (Remix 3)? Kinda related to my existential crisis. π
π React Native RFC - Secondary JavaScript runtimes in React Native - Worklet maintainer requesting a first-class C++ API to create secondary Hermes runtimes. This should help make the integration with libraries such as Reanimated/Worklets more robust, address debugging/inspector/HMR pain points, and more.
π React Native in an Industry That's Changing - A look into how working with agents changes the decision process on where to draw the line between native and cross-platform.
π¦ Xcode 27.2 beta - JSON project format .xcproj - A new JSON format thatβs more human-readable, editable by coding agents, and merge-friendly. Already the default for new projects.
π TC39 - Agenda for the 116th meeting - Happening next Tuesday. Many Iterator proposals will likely progress to stage 4. Iβm particularly excited to see if Composites will progress to stage 2!
π¦ Chrome 154 - Responsive iframe resizing - Iframes can now resize themselves based on the size of their embedded document π€―. Haven't all widget/extension authors dreamed of this for years, as an alternative to postMessage()?
π Read Online Hi everyone, Seb and Jan here π! Calm week on the React side, but we found a few interesting Next.js PRs to look at and a few Async React blog posts. On mobile, the first React Native 0.89 RC is here, with lots of performance work. Amazon Vega OS 2.0 brings RN 0.83 to every Vega-powered Fire TV. Hermes gets a full Intl implementation, still in preview. Screens v5 is coming. Elsewhere, GitHub Actions will block pull_request_target by default. Node.js 27 is the first alpha of the...
π Read Online Hi everyone, Seb and Jan here π! This week is full of TanStack releases with Redact, AI, and DB. Redact is a smaller, synchronous version of React. On mobile, it's an interesting week for native desktop app development and Nitro. Expo founders are cooking something new π. Node v26 is now LTS. SWCβs next version is much faster. Bun now ships a code formatter. Let's dive in! πΈ Sponsor Prioritize Your PR Queue Review the PR that matters most. CodeRabbit Triage ranks work across...
π Read Online Hi everyone, Seb and Jan here π! Itβs a heavy security week, with patches from React and Next.js. Not React-related, but there's also a very bad βphp2shellβ vulnerability that has just been disclosed. Upgrade now! On mobile, React Native 0.88 is out, switching to the web event model with no breaking changes. Expo SDK 58 ships with tons of features, ready for iOS 27 and iPhone Duo. Outside React, TypeScript makes the headlines. v7.1 is in beta, with a new API to build devtools...