In much the same way in which React for the Web comes with a multitude of JSX elements that represent native HTML elements (div and span), React Native comes with many components representing native iOS and Android components built in. These components are the building blocks of React Native applications and give you access to real, native interfaces that look and feel appropriate to the platform on which they are running.
In addition to these React Native components, the React Native library gives access to many native APIs, which allow us to perform other native tasks that don't comfortably fit into a component. It is important to note that React Native does not expose every native interface component and API. On occasion, we will have to create our own native modules. We'll learn more about writing and using custom native modules in Chapter 10, Using and Writing Native Modules.
In this chapter, we'll cover the following topics...