Why is manually moving a UIImageView slow?

Question

I am trying to write a head-to-head iPhone Air Hockey (like) game. When the user touches the screen I move the "puck" by placing the UIImageView center where the touch center is.

Also I move the puck (another UIImageView) using a timer. This method is slow and shaky. I know I can get performance out of OpenGL ES but I do not want it to get that involved if I can help it.

I would also like to take advantage of the animation engine for special effects and such. How can I manually move the paddles and puck to a timer and get better performance. Or do I just have to embrace OpenGL ES for this?

Answer 1

Or do I just have to embrace the OpenGL?

No there is a middle ground: CoreAnimation.

Matt Gallagher has a demo game (for Mac) which uses Core Animation to display sprites. You will not see the same performance on iPhone as desktop but, your game is much simpler than his example.