Is there a nine-patch loader for iPhone?

Question

Android has a nice way of defining stretchable images called a nine-patch. See these docs for a description of the concept. The idea is to surround a png image with a 1-pi

Answer 1

Yes UIImage does support something like it. See

- (UIImage *)stretchableImageWithLeftCapWidth:(NSInteger)leftCapWidth topCapHeight:(NSInteger)topCapHeight and the documentation for leftCapWidth and topCapHeight

basically the image is not stretched in the area leftCapWidth pixels from the left and right edge and topCapHeight pixels from the top and the bottom. When the image is scaled the area inside of these limits is subject to stretching.