iOS 7 parallax effect in my view controller

Solution 1:

With iOS 7, Apple introduced UIMotionEffect to add Motion effects that are related to the orientation of the user’s device. For example, to emulate the parallax effect on the home screen, you can use the subclass UIInterpolatingMotionEffect, as explained here, just with a few lines of code.

Objective-C:

// Set vertical effect
UIInterpolatingMotionEffect *verticalMotionEffect = 
  [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] 
  initWithKeyPath:@"center.y"
             type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongVerticalAxis];
verticalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-10);
verticalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @(10);

// Set horizontal effect 
UIInterpolatingMotionEffect *horizontalMotionEffect = 
  [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] 
  initWithKeyPath:@"center.x"     
             type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongHorizontalAxis];
horizontalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-10);
horizontalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @(10);
  
// Create group to combine both
UIMotionEffectGroup *group = [UIMotionEffectGroup new];
group.motionEffects = @[horizontalMotionEffect, verticalMotionEffect];

// Add both effects to your view
[myBackgroundView addMotionEffect:group];

Swift (Thanks to @Lucas):

// Set vertical effect
let verticalMotionEffect = UIInterpolatingMotionEffect(keyPath: "center.y",
type: .TiltAlongVerticalAxis)
verticalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = -10
verticalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = 10

// Set horizontal effect
let horizontalMotionEffect = UIInterpolatingMotionEffect(keyPath: "center.x",
    type: .TiltAlongHorizontalAxis)
horizontalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = -10
horizontalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = 10

// Create group to combine both
let group = UIMotionEffectGroup()
group.motionEffects = [horizontalMotionEffect, verticalMotionEffect]

// Add both effects to your view
myBackgroundView.addMotionEffect(group)

Also, you can find a bunch of libraries to do this easier or to add this functionality to older iOS versions:

• NGAParallaxMotion (requires iOS 7).
• DVParallaxView (requires iOS 5.0 or higher and ARC).
• MKParallaxView (tested with iOS 6.0, requires ARC).
• UIView-MWParallax (tested with iOS 6.1, requires ARC).

Solution 2:

Translated to swift in case anyone is lazy. Please vote @veducm answer up if you found this useful

@IBOutlet var background : UIImageView!

func parallaxEffectOnBackground() {
    let relativeMotionValue = 50
    var verticalMotionEffect : UIInterpolatingMotionEffect = UIInterpolatingMotionEffect(keyPath: "center.y",
        type: .TiltAlongVerticalAxis)
    verticalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = -relativeMotionValue
    verticalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = relativeMotionValue

    var horizontalMotionEffect : UIInterpolatingMotionEffect = UIInterpolatingMotionEffect(keyPath: "center.x",
        type: .TiltAlongHorizontalAxis)
    horizontalMotionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = -relativeMotionValue
    horizontalMotionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = relativeMotionValue

    var group : UIMotionEffectGroup = UIMotionEffectGroup()
    group.motionEffects = [horizontalMotionEffect, verticalMotionEffect]

    self.background.addMotionEffect(group)
}

Solution 3:

@veducm's solution can be a little shorter. The UIMotionEffectGroup for its x and y motion is obsolete if you add the the x and y-axis motionEffects separately.

UIInterpolatingMotionEffect *motionEffect;
motionEffect = [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] initWithKeyPath:@"center.x"
                                                               type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongHorizontalAxis];
motionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-25);
motionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @(25);
[bgView addMotionEffect:motionEffect];

motionEffect = [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] initWithKeyPath:@"center.y"
                                                               type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongVerticalAxis];
motionEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-25);
motionEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @(25);
[bgView addMotionEffect:motionEffect];

Solution 4:

const static CGFloat kCustomIOS7MotionEffectExtent = 10.0; 

- (void)applyMotionEffects:(UIView *YOUR_VIEW) {
     if (NSClassFromString(@"UIInterpolatingMotionEffect")) {
         UIInterpolatingMotionEffect *horizontalEffect = [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] initWithKeyPath:@"center.x"
                                                                                                        type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongHorizontalAxis];
         horizontalEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-kCustomIOS7MotionEffectExtent);
         horizontalEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @( kCustomIOS7MotionEffectExtent);
         UIInterpolatingMotionEffect *verticalEffect = [[UIInterpolatingMotionEffect alloc] initWithKeyPath:@"center.y"
                                                                                                      type:UIInterpolatingMotionEffectTypeTiltAlongVerticalAxis];
         verticalEffect.minimumRelativeValue = @(-kCustomIOS7MotionEffectExtent);
         verticalEffect.maximumRelativeValue = @( kCustomIOS7MotionEffectExtent);
         UIMotionEffectGroup *motionEffectGroup = [[UIMotionEffectGroup alloc] init];
         motionEffectGroup.motionEffects = @[horizontalEffect, verticalEffect]; 
         [YOUR_VIEW addMotionEffect:motionEffectGroup];
     }
}