Non-Smooth animation with Core Animation - iphone

Question

This is a weird request, but I'm using Core Animation (CALayers), and I want my animation to be choppy and non-smooth. I want an image I set up to rotate like a second hand on a clock. Here's my code:
UIImage *arrowImage = [UIImage imageNamed:#"arrow.jpg"];
CALayer *arrow = [CALayer layer];
arrow.contents = (id)arrowImage.CGImage;
arrow.bounds = CGRectMake(0, 0, 169.25, 45.25);
arrow.position = CGPointMake(self.view.bounds.size.width / 2, arrowImage.size.height / 2);
arrow.anchorPoint = CGPointMake(0.0, 0.5);
[self.view.layer addSublayer:arrow];
CABasicAnimation *anim1 = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:#"transform.rotation"];
anim1.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionLinear];
anim1.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0];
anim1.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:((360*M_PI)/180)];
anim1.duration = 4.0;
[arrow addAnimation:anim1 forKey:#"transform"];
It produces a gliding motion, which I don't want. How do I get around this?
Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

If you want it to be really choppy, don't use Core Animation at all. On the other hand, if you want something somewhere in between those two extremes, don't use linear media timing. Instead, you might want to try kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseIn so that the animation accelerates slightly as the hand moves.

Answer 2

The simple way to do this would be to simply apply a transform to your view. The second hand would snap from one position to the next. Just change the rotation by 360/60 = 6 degrees for each second.
If you want the second-hand to do an animation for each tick, you could use a very fast UIView block-based animation. (say with a 1/15 second duration or so.)
Take a look at the UIView class methods who's names start with animateWithDuration.
Something like this:
- (void) moveSecondHand;
{
seconds++;
angle = M_PI*2*seconds/60 - M_PI/2;
CGAffineTransform transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(angle);
[UIView animateWithDuration: 1.0/15
animations: *{
secondHand.transform = transform
}];
}
That's about all it would take. You're trigger that code with a timer once a second. By default animations use ease-in, ease-out timing, which models physical movement pretty well. Try different durations, but 1/15 is probably a good starting point (you want it fast, but not too fast to see.)
If you want a wobble to your animation you will need to get much fancier, and create an animation group that first moves it by the full amount, and then does a repeating animation that overshoots the stopping point by a small amount and then goes back.