What’s next for React Native for Desktop?

Moyes describes Microsoft’s goal of helping developers reuse React Native skills to build desktop apps or extend mobile apps to desktop. He says major Microsoft apps use React and React Native at a scale of over a billion users, and notes growing downloads for both Windows and macOS.

Najmi says React Native macOS and Windows released version 0.75, with macOS reaching it faster than before. He describes the work behind syncing desktop with core, including supporting visionOS dependencies, updating macOS RedBox, and aligning the cursor prop with web CSS names. The shared pointer behavior can also support hover effects on visionOS, iPad, and desktop.

Moyes explains that React Native for Windows is moving from UWP, which shipped with Windows and changed slowly, to the Windows App SDK. The SDK ships separately from the operating system and includes WinUI 3, lifecycle APIs, notifications, and other capabilities. This change enables more consistent updates and access to newer Windows features, but migrating is a breaking change.

Najmi says desktop support includes bridgeless mode, React Native DevTools, and newer Hermes versions on macOS, with shared iOS code helping keep the developer experience consistent. Moyes says Windows apps can already be deployed to the Microsoft Store with the New Architecture, while full WinUI 3 support, documentation, and accessibility API gaps remain in progress. He encourages developers and library maintainers to experiment.

Moyes points to desktop APIs for accessibility, theming, multi-window support, and input, and recommends the Windows and macOS gallery apps as examples. Najmi says Windows and macOS had different keyboard event APIs and behavior, making cross-platform code harder to write. macOS added the Windows-aligned `keyDownEvents` prop in version 0.74 and deprecated `validKeysDown`.