building-native-ui

Use NativeTabs from expo-router/unstable-native-tabs with a NativeTabs.Trigger for each route, setting icons via the sf prop for SF Symbols and md for Material Symbols on Android. Nest a Stack inside each tab to get navigation headers.

Set presentation to formSheet in Stack.Screen options along with sheetAllowedDetents like [0.5, 1.0] and sheetGrabberVisible. Adding contentStyle with a transparent background enables the liquid glass look on iOS 26 and later.

Always try Expo Go first by running npx expo start, since it supports all expo-* packages, Expo Router, and most UI libraries. Custom builds via npx expo run:ios are only needed for local native modules, Apple targets, or third-party native code.

Use expo-audio for audio playback and recording, and expo-video for video playback; expo-av is the legacy package and should be avoided. Both newer libraries provide hook-based APIs like useAudioPlayer and useVideoPlayer.

The tab bar goes transparent when the screen's first opaque child is not a ScrollView or FlatList. Make the ScrollView the first child, set collapsable to false on wrapper views, or enable disableTransparentOnScrollEdge on the trigger.

Yes, via the experimental_backgroundImage style property with linear-gradient or radial-gradient strings, but only on the New Architecture. Do not use expo-linear-gradient, and note gradients are unavailable in Expo Go on the old architecture.