Create a React Native App with Apple Watch & Widget Support

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With the increasing prevalence of wearables and home screen widgets, it’s becoming ever more important for apps to provide these additional touchpoints for their users. In this guide, I’ll walk you through creating a React Native application that communicates with both an Apple Watch and an iOS widget.

Prerequisites:

• React Native CLI set up
• Xcode (with WatchKit and WidgetKit)
• Basic understanding of React Native, Swift, and Objective-C

Initialize a New React Native Project

Start by creating a new React Native project:

npx react-native init RNWatchWidgetApp

Setting up Native Modules for Communication

Inside your project:

cd RNWatchWidgetApp

React Native’s RCTBridgeModule will be the bridge between our React Native JavaScript and native code. In ios/RNWatchWidgetApp, create a file named Communicator.m:

#import <React/RCTBridgeModule.h>

@interface RCT_EXTERN_MODULE(Communicator, NSObject)
RCT_EXTERN_METHOD(sendDataToWatch:(NSString *)data)
RCT_EXTERN_METHOD(retrieveDataFromWidget…