[cageface]

I'd say the iOS simulator is better than the Android emulator, although it's much better than it was. But Xcode is in no way a better IDE than Android Studio. It's not even close. Xcode is a marginally usable text editor with almost no "IDE" features. Android Studio + Java is probably as good as a commercial IDE gets when it comes to code editing, generation, and refactoring.

[on_and_off]

>Android Studio + Java is probably as good as a commercial IDE gets when it comes to code editing, generation, and refactoring.

It is only when I started using Kotlin (with it's slightly weaker IDE plugin) that I realized how good AS is out of the box for Android development. Jetbrains and Google are doing an awesome work at providing a first grade IDE.

[Buetol]

But the iOS simulator is very limited (no push notifications, no camera) and developping on device with android is better in my opinion (easy port forwarding so you can access you local server as localhost)

On the other side, with react-native you get an uniform debugging experience and easy re-usability of your components.

[Osis]

Regardless of what you choose, always check your app on real devices before shipping.

Simulators have come a long way but they still don't replicate the real world.

[dep_b]

There's definitely a load of Stockholm Syndrome in my post, but I really think that Xcode is a pretty decent IDE compared to most other IDE's bar Visual Studio and JetBrains products.

I'm also a big time Storyboard user, which can be a really great tool in expert hands.

[cageface]

All the expert iOS developers I know use storyboards very sparingly, if at all. They can be useful for really quickly throwing together a prototype but they just don't scale to complex apps. There's way too much string typing, no way to apply consistent styles, no way to compose views out of reusable elements, tons of headaches with version control etc etc.