Adding image paste with expo-paste-input, and moving the disappearing file:// URIs out of cache
How to let users paste images and GIFs into a chat input with expo-paste-input. The URIs that onPaste hands you are temporary files that can vanish before the user hits send. Here is the relocation code and the order I verify it on real devices.
Three Minutes After the Screen Locked, My expo-audio Ambient Sound Went Silent
Why expo-audio stops playing when the screen locks, diagnosed as three separate layers: build config, audio session, and lock screen integration. The three-minute stop on Android is documented behavior.
Put Your Live Rork App on a Spare iPhone Before iOS 27 Ships
iOS 27 arrives in September and developer beta 7 is already out. Here is how to turn an old iPhone into a beta device, what to check first, and which fixes you can ship from JavaScript without waiting for review.
I Moved My Dark Mode Checks Into DevTools, and Only Four Places Still Need a Real Device
Expo SDK 57 added light and dark emulation to React Native DevTools, which ended my trips to the Settings app. What it swaps is the value JavaScript reports, so a few places still need a real toggle. Here is how to find that boundary in your own project.
Predictive back on Android 16: what to fix before August 31, and what can wait
Targeting API 36 turns predictive back on by default and stops onBackPressed from firing. Here is how I split the work that the deadline actually requires from the work that does not, and how I kept the opt-out from disappearing on the next prebuild.
Every bulk replace exited zero. The damage was in the lines I did not delete
Run a bulk replace over generated code and the breakage lands on the neighbouring lines, not the matched ones. Here is what broke in a live project, and a dependency-free guard that checks the invariants a replace must preserve.
When an Expo UI drop-in swap actually removes a dependency
Expo UI went stable in SDK 56 with drop-in replacements for eight community packages. Swapping one import does not always shrink your dependency list. Here is how to decide which swaps actually pay off, straight from the dependency graph.
My chart broke on day one, not at scale
A line chart that vanished for anyone with only a few days of data. The cause was a zero-height Y axis turning coordinates into NaN. Here is the measured behavior and the small normalization layer that fixed it.
Find the Code That Trips App Store 2.5.2 Before You Submit
If a remote value can change what your app does, Guideline 2.5.2 may apply. Here is where the line actually sits, plus a script that surfaces the risky paths in your repo before submission.
Find the native edits expo prebuild will erase before you upgrade to SDK 57
Expo SDK 57 makes expo prebuild clear and regenerate ios and android by default. Here is how to audit your hand edits first, move them into config plugins, and why 57.0.9 matters for Reanimated apps.
Switching to Signed URLs Killed My Image Cache — Decoupling expo-image Keys from the URL
Signed URLs rewrite their query string on every expiry, so a URL-keyed cache never hits. Here is how to derive a stable key and drive expo-image's writeToCacheAsync and readFromCacheAsync yourself, with measured results.
Measuring Hermes Bytecode Delta Updates: One Added Module Cost 29x More Than One Changed Line
I measured OTA delta sizes against a 2.4MB Hermes bytecode bundle. Changing one line cost 2,104 bytes; adding one module cost 61,197. The widely repeated advice about stable module IDs turned out to matter least.