Less Blur with `Visual Effect View with Blur`?

Question

Title pretty much asks it all...

I\'m playing with the iOS8 Visual Effect View with Blur. It\'s over a UIImageView that shows a user choosa

Answer 1

This answer is based on Mitja Semolic's excellent earlier answer. I've converted it to swift 3, added an explanation to what's happening in coments, made it an extension of a UIViewController so any VC can call it at will, added an unblurred view to show selective application, and added a completion block so that the calling view controller can do whatever it wants at the completion of the blur.

    import UIKit
//This extension implements a blur to the entire screen, puts up a HUD and then waits and dismisses the view.
    extension UIViewController {
        func blurAndShowHUD(duration: Double, message: String, completion: @escaping () -> Void) { //with completion block
            //1. Create the blur effect & the view it will occupy
            let blurEffect = UIBlurEffect(style: UIBlurEffectStyle.light)
            let blurEffectView = UIVisualEffectView()//(effect: blurEffect)
            blurEffectView.frame = self.view.bounds
            blurEffectView.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth, .flexibleHeight]

        //2. Add the effect view to the main view
            self.view.addSubview(blurEffectView)
        //3. Create the hud and add it to the main view
        let hud = HudView.getHUD(view: self.view, withMessage: message)
        self.view.addSubview(hud)
        //4. Begin applying the blur effect to the effect view
        UIView.animate(withDuration: 0.01, animations: {
            blurEffectView.effect = blurEffect
        })
        //5. Halt the blur effects application to achieve the desired blur radius
        self.view.pauseAnimationsInThisView(delay: 0.004)
        //6. Remove the view (& the HUD) after the completion of the duration
        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + duration) {
            blurEffectView.removeFromSuperview()
            hud.removeFromSuperview()
            self.view.resumeAnimationsInThisView()
            completion()
        }
    }
}

extension UIView {
    public func pauseAnimationsInThisView(delay: Double) {
        let time = delay + CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent()
        let timer = CFRunLoopTimerCreateWithHandler(kCFAllocatorDefault, time, 0, 0, 0, { timer in
            let layer = self.layer
            let pausedTime = layer.convertTime(CACurrentMediaTime(), from: nil)
            layer.speed = 0.0
            layer.timeOffset = pausedTime
        })
        CFRunLoopAddTimer(CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), timer, CFRunLoopMode.commonModes)
    }
    public func resumeAnimationsInThisView() {
        let pausedTime  = layer.timeOffset

        layer.speed = 1.0
        layer.timeOffset = 0.0
        layer.beginTime = layer.convertTime(CACurrentMediaTime(), from: nil) - pausedTime
    }
}

I've confirmed that it works with both iOS 10.3.1 and iOS 11