Release notes: Native Demo App now uses Expo

Merged: December 23, 2025 (PR #140)

What changed

1. Migration to Expo
   The app moved from a React Native bare setup to an Expo based setup.

2. Dependency refresh
   As part of the migration, the dependency tree was updated to align with Expo tooling and supported modules.

3. Build and release workflow improvements
   Workflows and scripts were updated to support the new Expo build and release flow, including publishing and artifact handling

4. Docs and versioning updates
   Documentation and versioning automation were updated to match the new project structure and release approach.

Why this matters

• Easier maintenance and upgrades: fewer native edge cases compared to the previous bare setup.
• Simpler builds and releases: Expo standardizes build tooling and improves module support.

Notable fixes included

• UI tweaks (status bar and carousel sizing)
• Small accessibility improvement (dropdown chevron label)

Breaking change

If you had custom local scripts that relied on the previous React Native bare project structure, they will need updating to match the Expo project layout and tooling.

This release is mainly an upgrade to:

• React Native 0.73.1
• upgrade to latest dependencies
• "full" support for Android 13+ and iOs 16+
• improved release pipeline

See also #131

This release contains the following:

• update the app to the latest RN version

• update all dependencies

• Use TypeScript

• Add GitHub Actions for Android and iOS

• Adds Dark Mode to the app, see this tweet

• Deeplinking:

  • Android: run adb shell am start -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "wdio://swipe" com.wdiodemoapp from the command line, it will open the app in the swipe tab
  • iOS: run xcrun simctl openurl booted wdio://swipe from the command line, it will open the app in the swipe tab

• Biometric support: This is a simple implementation, just to demo/test the usage, see this tweet

• Horizontal swiping: The swiping screen now also has a horizontal swipe option

• Drag and drop: A puzzle has been created to learn how to drag and drop, see this tweet

The following has been fixed:

• make webview for Android debuggable
• fix the focusing of the keyboard for scrollviews
• simplify Android release
• fix screen orientation to landscape

I added add RN-versioning module and bumped the version. Please use the versions below to test against

Added accessibility labels to components to make it better testable

• fix http address error in webview
• fix some docs

See the docs for more info