Discord is making its Android app more iOS-like

If you own an Android phone, you may have noticed that the iPhone gets new features from your favorite apps before Android devices — or, in some cases, not at all. Discord is changing that by switching to React Native for its Android app.

According to a blog post written by Discord’s product team, React Native is an open source UI software framework that will allow the company to release new features across all platforms simultaneously. In other words, Discord users who have Android will get any new features the company introduces at the same time as the iOS app, rather than waiting weeks or months for them to arrive on iOS.

“Historically, the work to implement new features on Android was often delayed until desktop and iOS were completed, resulting in some features launching first on one platform before eventually arriving on another. You may have noticed this when we share announcements about upcoming features with a note that says something like “Android support coming soon,” Discord writes.

Discord has been using React Native since Meta open-sourced it in 2015, which helped the company build the iOS app from its React app core. However, by letting the Android app run on React Native for the first time, Android users will see that the Discord UI design on their device, like the Pixel 6a, will resemble the design shown on iOS and even on the desktop .

The move to React Native for the Android app is about maintaining the consistency of delivering new features and updates to Discord for users on all platforms, as well as allowing engineers to streamline and consolidate their processes so that Android users can receive new app updates faster. New Android users who download the Discord app will see a larger font in the iOS app for accessibility purposes, but existing users will have the option to change the font size.

Discord said the Android app will be automatically updated on all Android devices in the coming weeks.

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