Pointer Events Support in React Native

React Native just dropped experimental Pointer Events support, and it's a game-changer for cross-platform input handling. No more forking the framework to support mouse, pen, or keyboard interactions.

The React Native team is introducing a W3C-compliant Pointer Events API that unifies input handling across mobile, desktop, VR, and web. This addresses years of fragmentation where out-of-tree platforms had to fork React Native or build custom native modules just to support basic features like hover detection or left-click.

Key Takeaways

• Follows W3C Pointer Events spec for cross-platform mouse, touch, pen, and keyboard input
• Already powering Meta's VR platform and the Oculus Store in production
• Ported Web Platform Tests to React Native for spec compliance verification
• Seven core events implemented: onPointerOver, onPointerEnter, onPointerDown, onPointerMove, onPointerUp, onPointerOut, onPointerLeave
• Requires New Architecture (Fabric) and React Native 0.71+ with feature flags

The implementation details reveal how they're leveraging Android's MotionEvent and iOS's UITouch under the hood, plus what's coming next for gesture handling APIs.