Why does initWithFrame have the wrong frame value?

Question

I have a subclass of UIButton called INMenuCard and I am overriding the initWithFrame to include an activity indicator. The menuCard places correctly but any internal reference to "frame" give me "inf,inf,0,0" which means my activityIndicator subview is not placed correctly. What might I be missing?

@implementation INMenuCard

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame 
{
    if (self = [super initWithFrame:frame]) 
    {

        CGRect innerFrame = CGRectInset(frame, 50.0f, 100.0f);
        activityIndicator = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc]
                             initWithFrame:innerFrame];
        activityIndicator.activityIndicatorViewStyle = UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhite;
        [self addSubview:activityIndicator];
    }
    return self;
}

I am instantiating INMenuCard with (debugging shows the CGRect values are correct):

 CGRect cardFrame = CGRectMake(cardX, cardStartY, cardWidth, cardHeight);
 INMenuCard *menuCard = [[INMenuCard buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom] initWithFrame:cardFrame];
 [theView addSubView:menuCard];

Answer 1

Should you be calling initWithFrame on something that is already init'ed?

It seems to me that the line [INMenuCard buttonWithType:UIButtonTypeCustom] is calling the UIButton's shortcut which does the [[UIButton alloc] init] for you.