January at Software Mansion

January got the year off to a good start for us! ? Grab your favorite drink and take a few minutes to catch up on all the latest from our React Native, multimedia, and AI dev teams.

?? In today’s edition, among other things:

• The React Native Reanimated 4.0.0 beta is out, and it comes with support for CSS Animations and Transitions
• The call for proposals for App.js Conf is now open
• Our first Video Tech Kraków Meetup is streaming live today – join us
• A deep dive into building a globally distributed WebRTC service

Exploring Fishjam – a multimedia streaming toolkit for building React Native real-time video and audio streaming apps

Fishjam is a multimedia streaming toolkit that lets you build real-time video and audio streaming applications using WebRTC. It provides the infrastructure, media server, and client SDKs that integrate easily into your app, so you can focus on features instead of dealing with complex multimedia setup. Plus, you don’t need any multimedia knowledge to get started.

With Fishjam, you can create different types of multimedia systems, whether it’s a real-time video conferencing system, a broadcasting solution, or both at the same time. And now, Fishjam is available to the general public.

Fishjam offers a free plan along with flexible pricing tiers that let you upgrade as you grow, no hidden fees or unpredictable costs. Now you can also explore our sandbox environment for free and see how it works for yourself.

To get started, you simply need to:

1. Create an account on our developer panel.
2. Once you have an account, Fishjam automatically assigns you a sandbox instance. Sandbox instances come with Room Manager – a simple backend for creating test rooms. You’ll simply need to copy the Room Manager URL from the developer panel.
3. Choose a client SDK you want to use (we provide SDKs for React Native and React) and enjoy Fishjam’s capabilities.

If you want to learn more details, visit our docs, or talk to the creators of Fishjam: Maciej Rys and Piotr Wodecki .

React Native

The call for proposals for App.js Conf 2025 is now open

Spring is just around the corner, and so is the 5th edition of App.js Conf – the biggest React Native and Expo-focused conference!?

We’re now looking for speakers, so this could be your chance to take the stage. ?? If you have a unique perspective and hands-on insights into challenges the community faces, this is the perfect opportunity to share them. We offer free accommodation and cover travel expenses for all speakers.

??? Submission deadline: February 23, 2025

?? Conference dates: May 28–30, 2025

Read more & apply at: https://appjs.co/

New release alert: react-native-reanimated 4.0 in beta?

React Native Reanimated 4 is now in beta, bringing support for CSS animations and transitions! ?? Animating elements with CSS in React Native has never been easier.

This is the most significant update to the library since the introduction of worklets in Reanimated 2. The new version features a reworked animation core and a fresh set of APIs that enable CSS-compatible animations. Reanimated 4 leverages the performance benefits of platform-native animation APIs and offloads work from the React Native JavaScript thread.

With its help, you can simply take CSS animation code, bring it into React Native, and see it in action.

?? Learn more from our announcement blog post.

New release alert: react-native-screens 4.6.0

react-native-screens 4.6.0 is out. This release provides a few important fixes, including:

• Fixing the incorrect position of FullWindowOverlay in certain scenarios
• Resolving issues with clicking on a Pressable located in the screen header
• Restoring focus during page transitions

And more. For the full list of changes, check the docs.?

New release alert: react-native-svg 15.11.0?

react-native-svg 15.11.0 comes with several important fixes, better support for the new architecture, and compatibility with React Native 0.77.

In the new architecture, onLayout will now fire only once and provide the correct dimensions. Key changes include:

• Added ios.componentProvider in the codegen configuration to improve iOS component management
• Introduced custom shadow nodes for more flexible UI rendering
• Fixed stale currentColor values to ensure proper color rendering

For the full list of updates, check out the release notes.

New library: react-native-sortables is out

react-native-sortables is a new library created by one of our developers, Mateusz ?opaciński . It brings powerful sorting capabilities to React Native – it comes with a simple API, full TypeScript support, and compatibility with both the old and new architectures.?

The library offers great flexibility and:

• Supports Grid and Flex layouts
• Supports different size items
• Provides a great developer experience with auto-scroll and seamless layout animations

You can learn more from the docs – be sure to check it out.

First Radon IDE update in 2025

The first Radon IDE update of 2025 is here, bringing some new features and improvements:

• Support for React Query and Redux DevTools directly in your editor, with more tools coming soon
• Local EAS builds support for a smoother development experience
• Support for React Native 0.77
• UI updates that create more room for device views
• Numerous stability improvements and bug fixes

Radon IDE is also now available in Windsurf. ?? You can try it for free for 30 days here.

P.S. ProductHunt is currently accepting nominations for DevTool of the Year, and you can help us by simply nominating Radon IDE at the bottom of the page. We’d really appreciate your support. ??

Must-read: Some time ago we launched react-native-audio-api. Now it's the time to learn more about it

Some time ago, we released react-native-audio-api. ???? It aims to bring the same tools available in browsers via the Web Audio API to React Native, offering high-performance audio control and playback.

By aligning with the Web Audio specification, we want to create a single API that works seamlessly across iOS, Android, browsers, and desktop apps. The React Native ecosystem currently lacks a high-performance API for creating audio, adding effects, and controlling parameters like volume for each track – and we’re here to fill that gap.

Micha? S?k has put together a detailed article explaining how react-native-audio-api works. Be sure to give it a read ?? https://blog.swmansion.com/hello-react-native-audio-api-bb0f10347211

Podcast time: How we maintain open-source libraries at Software Mansion

Open source and great developer experience are our big focus at Software Mansion. ??

Kacper Kapu?ciak joined the React Native Radio podcast by Infinite Red, Inc. to discuss the ins and outs of maintaining our open-source libraries. He talked about what’s involved, why it’s important, and how tools like Reanimated and Screens continue to evolve. He also touched on how open source impacts the community.?

And trust us, Kacper is the best person to learn this from. You can tune in here.

Multimedia?

Kraków Video Tech Meetup is happening today!

Our first Kraków Video Tech Meetup is taking place today at 6 PM, and you can join us online for 3 great talks from video tech experts. ??

Even if the code behind the stream seems like dark magic to you now, it's always a good time to broaden your horizons! We’re not limiting ourselves to a single technology or language – if you’re into audio, video, or computer vision development, be sure to watch our stream.

New release alert: TypeGPU 0.3.0

TypeGPU 0.3.0 is out and it introduces some important changes to the API:

• A new tgpu.resolve() API that will inject matching struct and bind group layout definitions into your shaders based on TypeGPU definitions! No more duplicated JS and WGSL code
• layout.bound.* properties that allow shaders to reference layout entries by name, no longer requiring the manual sync between binding indices.
• d.builtin.* data-type schemas that represent every possible @builtin(...) ... type.
• Cleaner "typegpu" import suggestions in your IDE.

Check out the full release notes for more details!

See how to add image classification to your app with React Native ExecuTorch

React Native ExecuTorch allows you to run image classification in your app with just a few lines of code, making it super easy to bring on-device AI capabilities to your project. ???

Watch the video for a quick integration demo, and explore more examples on our GitHub.

Must-read: Building a globally distributed WebRTC service with Elixir WebRTC, STUNner, and Cilium Cluster Mesh

WebRTC has become the backbone of real-time communication applications, powering video calls, live streaming, and other latency-sensitive services. However, building a globally distributed WebRTC service can be tricky. ??

Péter Megyesi wrote a detailed post on how to create a scalable, geo-distributed WebRTC service using Elixir WebRTC, STUNner, and Cilium Cluster Mesh to enable smooth live streaming. You can read it here.

Big thanks to Péter Megyesi for sharing this!

Must-read: Building a Membrane pipeline to talk to Google Gemini

Large Language Models like Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash and OpenAI’s GPT-4o Realtime are multimodal, meaning users can interact with them via text, voice, or even live video. ??

Compared to text-only LLMs, this introduces new challenges for developers building on top of Google’s and OpenAI’s APIs. They now need to create multimedia pipelines that handle audio and video streams from users and send them to the LLM provider.

Elixir, paired with the Membrane framework, is an excellent tool for building these pipelines, ensuring seamless interaction between users and LLMs. ??

In his guest post, Samrat Man Singh explores how Membrane supports network transport, audio processing, and interactions with Google Gemini – be sure to give it a read.

Thanks to Samrat for sharing his insights!

That's all for today – thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts on this format. :)