[ex3ndr]

No, you do not, you can use a free service by expo that would build in the cloud. Literally requires zero setup. Local build is needed only if you are sensitive to security, but many banks started to use it. Also native plugins became so easy to use it is a joke how simple it is comparing to cocoapods and some cryptic libraries.

Expo's workflow is so perfect comparing to pure native, it is not even comparable. To do iOS development you need: Swift Packages, Cocoapods and XCode at least. Whils in general it is simple, but cocoapods constantly fights with apple and xcode to not crash anything. While expo also uses cocoapods, it is much more stable because you can always just delete a native project and regenerate it from scratch and it will work.

I am not even starting to discuss how complicated is development for Android - literally everything now have 5+ different APIs for a simple things like "please encrypt this string" or "take a photo". React Native and Expo has perfect packages that solves real problems and work with a few keystrokes.

[imgabe]

I'm glad it works for you. One thing I've learned from bitter experience is "don't swim upstream". Meaning, you're likely to have problems when you're using tech outside the way it was intended. Apple intends apps to be developed in Swift with XCode, so that's what they support and when they develop new features that's what they have in mind. They don't care about Expo and if they do something that breaks Expo or Flutter or any other third-party service, that's not their problem and they aren't going to do anything about it. Expo et al are always going to be second class citizens to Apple.

Cocoapods are on their way out. I use Swift Package Manager on new projects and it's literally a couple clicks to install whatever package you want. Haven't had any problems yet.