Add a sublayer to a CALayer without animation?

Answer 1

Have you tried this:

[CATransaction begin];
[CATransaction setValue:(id)kCFBooleanTrue
                 forKey:kCATransactionDisableActions];
[layer addSublayer:sublayer];
[CATransaction commit];

from the Apple docs?

Answer 2

You can also suppress implicit layer addition animations by setting the actions dictionary on the superlayer, like I describe in this answer:

NSMutableDictionary *newActions = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:[NSNull null], @"sublayers", nil];
superlayer.actions = newActions;
[newActions release];