With AFNetworking, is very simple to download an image from a server and put into an UIImageView:
[imageView setImageWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@\"http://i
You can use animateWithDuration in conjunction with the rendition of setImageWithURL that supplies the success block, e.g.
[imageView setImageWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://i.imgur.com/r4uwx.jpg"]
placeholderImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"placeholder-avatar"]
success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, UIImage *image) {
self.imageView.alpha = 0.0;
self.imageView.image = image;
[UIView animateWithDuration:0.25
animations:^{
self.imageView.alpha = 1.0;
}];
}
failure:NULL];
Or, if you placeholder image isn't blank, you would probably want to cross dissolve via transitionWithView:
[imageView setImageWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://i.imgur.com/r4uwx.jpg"]
placeholderImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"placeholder-avatar"]
success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, UIImage *image) {
[UIView transitionWithView:self.imageView
duration:0.3
options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
animations:^{
self.imageView.image = image;
}
completion:NULL];
}
failure:NULL];
Update:
By the way, if you're concerned about the fact that the image view (and if you refer to self, the view or the view controller, too) being retained until the download is done, you could:
__weak UIImageView *weakImageView = self.imageView;
[imageView setImageWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://i.imgur.com/r4uwx.jpg"]
placeholderImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"placeholder-avatar"]
success:^(NSURLRequest *request, NSHTTPURLResponse *response, UIImage *image) {
UIImageView *strongImageView = weakImageView; // make local strong reference to protect against race conditions
if (!strongImageView) return;
[UIView transitionWithView:strongImageView
duration:0.3
options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
animations:^{
strongImageView.image = image;
}
completion:NULL];
}
failure:NULL];
Even if you do that, the image view is retained until the download completes, so you could optionally also cancel any download in progress in the dealloc method of the view controller:
- (void)dealloc
{
// if MRC, call [super dealloc], too
[_imageView cancelImageRequestOperation];
}