Animate removal of UITableViewCellAccessory - iphone

Question

Is there any way to animate the removal of a UITableView cell accessory?
I currently am showing a UITableViewCellAccessoryDisclosureIndicator, but I would like to animate swapping the disclosure indicator with a UISwitch on all visible table cells.
I've tried something like this:
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.3
animations:^{
for (SwitchTableViewCell *cell in self.tableView.visibleCells)
{
cell.accessoryType = UITableViewCellAccessoryNone;
}
}];
... but unfortunately that has no affect. The disclosure indicator abruptly disappears and the contentView width jumps in one step, rather than a smooth transition.

Answer 1

accessoryType is not an animatable property. There are two ways you can do this, depending on your situation. The easiest only applies if you are changing the accessory to a UISwitch because of entering the editing state. In this case, just usecell.editingAccessoryType = theSwitch; in your tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: method. The table view will then do a fade in/out automatically when entering editing mode.
If you are doing this outside of editing mode, then the following code will do what you want:
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.3 animations:^{
for(SwitchTableViewCell *cell in self.tableView.visibleCells) {
[[cell valueForKey:#"_accessoryView"] setAlpha:0.0];
}
} completion:^(BOOL done) {
for(SwitchTableViewCell *cell in self.tableView.visibleCells) {
cell.accessoryView = theSwitch;
}
}];
However, I do not know if this code will make it into the app store since it uses the hidden property _accessoryView.