Sure, just manage opening the images yourself.
For instance, I wanted to have a method like "imageNamed" but did not want the caching that imageNamed does, so I wrote my own. This isn't the function you want, but it illustrates the concept and you can make up your own rules. It isn't a huge amount of work to do your own implementation. If you wanted the caching of imageNamed, just use imageNamed to open the image that you eventually decide to use.
// An "uncached" version of -imageNamed.
// It looks for the scale-and-idiom suffixes @2x, ~ipad, and @2x~ipad
// and preferentially loads the specific version if it is available.
+ (UIImage *)imageNamedUncached:(NSString *)name {
NSString *tryName;
NSString *nonRetinaiPadTryName = @"";
NSArray *parts = [name componentsSeparatedByString:@"."];
if (UI_USER_INTERFACE_IDIOM() == UIUserInterfaceIdiomPad) {
if ([[UIScreen mainScreen] scale] == 1.0) {
// non-retina
tryName = [parts[0] stringByAppendingString:@"~ipad"];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:@"."];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:parts[1]];
} else {
// retina
tryName = [parts[0] stringByAppendingString:@"@2x~ipad"];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:@"."];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:parts[1]];
nonRetinaiPadTryName = [parts[0] stringByAppendingString:@"~ipad"];
nonRetinaiPadTryName = [nonRetinaiPadTryName stringByAppendingString:@"."];
nonRetinaiPadTryName = [nonRetinaiPadTryName stringByAppendingString:parts[1]];
}
} else {
// iPhone
if ([[UIScreen mainScreen] scale] == 1.0) {
// non-retina
tryName = name;
} else {
// retina
tryName = [parts[0] stringByAppendingString:@"@2x"];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:@"."];
tryName = [tryName stringByAppendingString:parts[1]]; }
}
NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:tryName ofType:nil];
//NSLog(@"For tryName %@ I get path %@",tryName, path);
if ( ! path) {
// If this is a retina iPad we made a non-retina try name -- so check that
if ( ! [nonRetinaiPadTryName isEqualToString: @""]) {
path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:nonRetinaiPadTryName ofType:nil];
//NSLog(@"For non-retina ipad try name %@ I get path %@",nonRetinaiPadTryName, path);
}
if ( ! path) {
// Try the unmodified name
path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:name ofType:nil];
//NSLog(@"For base name %@ I get path %@",name, path);
}
}
UIImage *pathImage = [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:path];
return pathImage;
}