Animate UIButton state change

UIButton inherits from UIView

So then you get its view and call beginAnimations:context:

Then all the appropriate setAnimation methods from there.

The following properties of the UIView class are animatable:

• @property frame
• @property bounds
• @property center
• @property transform
• @property alpha
• @property backgroundColor
• @property contentStretch

Ref: UIView Class Reference

To accomplish that I extended UIButton. added a new property called hilightedImage with the following code:

- (void)setHilightImage:(UIImageView *)_hilightImage
{
    if (hilightImage != _hilightImage) {
        [hilightImage release];
        hilightImage = [_hilightImage retain];
    }
    [hilightImage setAlpha:0];
    [self addSubview:hilightImage];
}

- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {
    [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL];
    [UIView setAnimationDuration:0.14];
    if(hilightImage){
        [hilightImage setAlpha:1];
    }
    [UIView commitAnimations];
    [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event];
}

- (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event {

    self.highlighted = FALSE;
    [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL];
    [UIView setAnimationDuration:0.14];
    if(hilightImage){
        [hilightImage setAlpha:0];
    }

    [UIView commitAnimations];
    [super touchesEnded:touches withEvent:event];
}

This can be done using transition animation of a UIView. It does not matter the isHighlighted property is not animatable, because it transitions the whole view.

Swift 3

UIView.transition(with: button,
                  duration: 4.0,
                  options: .transitionCrossDissolve,
                  animations: { button.isHighlighted = true },
                  completion: nil)

Objective-C

[UIView transitionWithView:button
                  duration:4.0
                   options:UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionCrossDissolve
                animations:^{ button.highlighted = YES; }
                completion:nil];