If I am developing iOS apps using react native on apple m1, will the builds have compatibility for devices not using the ARM chip?

Question

I am new to iOS development and want to attempt to build an app using react-native cli. I am grabbing an apple device within next couple days and have been considering the new M1, however, I have not been able to figure out if the apps I build on the m1 would work on older devices (specifically phones) that do not have the m1, considering a majority of people fall into this category.

Is the m1 a good purchase at this point? or should I go with an intel based mac?

I feel dumb for not completely understanding why or why not they would work, so if someone could explain the apps would or would not be compatible in laymans terms it would really help my confidence with this purchase. Would I have to run my apps with rosetta?

Answer 1

I'm also getting a new Macbook pro with a M1 and I also develop React Native and iOS apps and after careful research I can safely say that with Xcode 12 you should be able to build your react native app for both chipsets.

(as per my comments) here is the snippet from Xcode's landing page -

Xcode 12 is built as a Universal app that runs 100% natively on Intel-based CPUs and Apple Silicon for great performance and a snappy interface.* It also includes a unified macOS SDK that includes all the frameworks, compilers, debuggers, and other tools you need to build apps that run natively on Apple Silicon and the Intel x86_64 CPU.

Until a month ago applications such as VSCode would not have functioned on your M1 Mac as well as several other apps, but updates have been pushed since which allow for a M1 device to more or less function like any other Mac. But the general consensus is that there might be potential issues with other 3rd party apps (unrelated to XCode or VSCode) and these might take a few months to be resolved. So all in all at this stage it would be worth it to get a new Mac, but be prepared for some bugs with 3rd party apps.