React Native 0.82 marks a major milestone by exclusively running on the New Architecture, removing support for the Legacy Architecture. The release introduces experimental Hermes V1 with performance improvements (up to 9% faster bundle loading), upgrades to React 19.1.1 with full owner stacks support, and implements DOM Node APIs for web-like tree traversal. Additional features include Web Performance APIs in canary, an optimized debug build type for Android that runs at 60 FPS versus 20 FPS in standard debug mode, and improved error reporting for uncaught promise rejections.