First add the long press gesture recognizer to the table view:

UILongPressGestureRecognizer *lpgr = [[UILongPressGestureRecognizer alloc] 
  initWithTarget:self action:@selector(handleLongPress:)];
lpgr.minimumPressDuration = 2.0; //seconds
lpgr.delegate = self;
[self.myTableView addGestureRecognizer:lpgr];
[lpgr release];

Then in the gesture handler:

-(void)handleLongPress:(UILongPressGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
    CGPoint p = [gestureRecognizer locationInView:self.myTableView];

    NSIndexPath *indexPath = [self.myTableView indexPathForRowAtPoint:p];
    if (indexPath == nil) {
        NSLog(@"long press on table view but not on a row");
    } else if (gestureRecognizer.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateBegan) {
        NSLog(@"long press on table view at row %ld", indexPath.row);
    } else {
        NSLog(@"gestureRecognizer.state = %ld", gestureRecognizer.state);
    }
}

You have to be careful with this so that it doesn't interfere with the user's normal tapping of the cell and also note that handleLongPress may fire multiple times (this will be due to the gesture recognizer state changes).


I've used Anna-Karenina's answer, and it works almost great with a very serious bug.

If you're using sections, long-pressing the section title will give you a wrong result of pressing the first row on that section, I've added a fixed version below (including the filtering of dummy calls based on the gesture state, per Anna-Karenina suggestion).

- (IBAction)handleLongPress:(UILongPressGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer
{
    if (gestureRecognizer.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateBegan) {

        CGPoint p = [gestureRecognizer locationInView:self.tableView];

        NSIndexPath *indexPath = [self.tableView indexPathForRowAtPoint:p];
        if (indexPath == nil) {
            NSLog(@"long press on table view but not on a row");
        } else {
            UITableViewCell *cell = [self.tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:indexPath];
            if (cell.isHighlighted) {
                NSLog(@"long press on table view at section %d row %d", indexPath.section, indexPath.row);
            }
        }
    }
}