Animated moving UIButton not responding to touches

Question

I'm trying to animate a UIButton to move up the screen. At any point the user can touch it. However, it doesn't seem to respond to touches while moving, only at the start and end of its animation. I guess this is because the button itself isn't moving, just the image of it. Any ideas how I can solve this? Here's my code so far. Thanks!

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [self newBubble];
    [super viewDidLoad];
}

- (void)newBubble {
    UIButton *bubble = [[UIButton buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom] retain];
    bubble.frame = CGRectMake(10, 380, 50, 50);
    UIImage *bubbleImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"bubble.png"];
    [bubble setBackgroundImage:bubbleImage forState:UIControlStateNormal];
    bubble.imageView.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFit;
    [bubble addTarget:self action:@selector(bubbleBurst:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchDown];
    [self.view addSubview:bubble];

    [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:nil];
    [UIView setAnimationDuration:5.0];
    CGAffineTransform newTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(1.5, 1.5);
    bubble.transform = CGAffineTransformTranslate(newTransform, 10, -200);
    [UIView commitAnimations];
}

- (IBAction)bubbleBurst:(id)sender {
    NSLog(@"Bubble burst");
    UIButton *bubbleBurst = sender;
    [bubbleBurst removeFromSuperview];
}

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure you would have to use Core Animation if you want the button to respond to touches while it is moving, but I have never done this so this is really more a tip then an answer!

Answer 2

The +[UIView animateWithDuration:delay:options:animations:completion:] method takes a UIViewAnimationOptions argument. If you include UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction, you should be able to press the button while it animates:

    [UIView animateWithDuration:5.0
                      delay:0.0
                    options:UIViewAnimationOptionAllowUserInteraction
                 animations:^{
        CGAffineTransform newTransform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(1.5, 1.5);
        bubble.transform = CGAffineTransformTranslate(newTransform, 10, -200);
    } completion:nil];

Answer 3

Well after posting a similar question, I found the answer here

Basically, you have to move the button frame by frame using an NSTimer. In my case I was worried there would be too many NSTimers involved moving each button, but in the end I used a single timer which loops through an array of buttons and moves them all one by one.

Answer 4

I agree. I think the problem is that you're not using Core Animation. I can't believe you couldn't figure that out for yourself.