It's possible to write React Native apps in ES6+ using babel-loader and webpack.

Basically you need to compile everything to index.ios.js file, which is then transformed by react-native. Also, to stop webpack from trying to load native (Objective-C) components, you need to define them all as externals and set libraryTarget: 'commonjs' in webpack config, this way webpack will not resolve require to native components.

This example use DependencyGraph module from React Native to load all native modules into webpack config. It requires additional helper (wepack-watch.js), however it will make sure webpack is always aware of all native modules, so you don't need to keep the list up-to-date manually.

Check webpack.config.js for build configuration and webpack-watch.js to see how DependencyGraph module works.

Before running the project, change code location in iOS/AppDelegate.m to localhost to run on iOS Simulator or to your computer's IP address to run on device. Run in the terminal node webpack-watch (this will load native modules for the first time, so this may take a while), open another tab and run react-native start.

• No support for ES6 classes. There's no React.Component or any other extendable base class.