Waiting for a specified duration in Cocoa

Here's the NSTimer way of doing it. It's might be even uglier than the method you're using, but it allows repeating events, so I prefer it.

[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.5f 
                                 target:self
                               selector: @selector(doSomething:) 
                               userInfo:nil
                                repeats:NO];

You want to avoid something like usleep() which will just hang your app and make it feel unresponsive.

There is

usleep(1000000);

and

[NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:1.0f];

both of which will sleep for 1 second.