I've heard those reports, but it's absolutely insane. Having feature flags is table stakes on mobile. And being able to put out security or bugfix updates rapidly is the killer feature of React Native. The current ToS say you need store review for feature changes, and that's fine. But OTA updates and feature flag changes for bugfixes, phased rollouts, A/B testing, and security patches are critical.

Just last week we saw a critical CVE in BetterAuth integrations for mobile app sessions. Being able to put out a patch without being gatekept on review is just so important in a world where crazy security vulnerabilities are being disclosed daily.

Yeah, I have an app with ~150 users, and Play Store updates slowed down to about a week for a moment, but lately they have been going out within the hour.

It’s probably only a year or two out that Apple will inform us that “for security reasons,” they’ll only accept App Store submissions in the form of an XCode project, i.e. as source only. (What are developers going to do? NOT be on the iPhone?)