Building v0 iOS and Fixing React Native Along the Way With Fernando Rojo, Szymon Rybczak & Oskar Kwaśniewski

Vercel’s v0 iOS app is built with React Native, but it looks and feels like a fully native iOS product. In this episode of React Universe On Air, we go deep into how the v0 mobile app was built: from choosing Expo and going iOS-first, to writing native modules, fixing low-level React Native issues, and upstreaming improvements back to the ecosystem. This is a hands-on engineering conversation with Fernando Rojo, Szymon Rybczak, and Oskar kwaśniewski about real trade-offs, real constraints, and what it takes to ship a polished app under real deadlines. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the React Universe 00:50 Meet our guests 02:42 v0 app overview 03:45 Iterating to greatness 05:07 Choosing Expo and initial tech decisions 07:55 Code sharing with v0 website 11:03 Open Source contributions 13:20 React Native Core fixes 15:40 Android version? 18:42 Modal issues we fixed 23:20 Working with React Native Core 26:16 Balancing deadlines and root cause analysis 27:23 Native Modules and custom solutions 29:16 Minimalistic UI challenges 30:44 Floating Composer concept 33:41 Feature flags and testing 36:48 WebView swiping and custom forks 45:16 Launch experience and security concerns 50:17 Final thoughts