iOS Problem with using NSTimer in another thread

[antwerp]

Hi, guys!

I'm developing some app where I need to make some precision operations in background thread every 1/x of second. The application have UIScrollView component and I want to not idle with this operations while UIScrollView making some scrolling (I have these idles if I try to make this operations on main thread). After trying to make what I need in my application I decided to make tiny sample to get the same behaviour there before and then implement it into my application. But I can't get it there.

So, what have I done:

1) I have created simple application with only one UIScrollView component and UIButton on it. Scrollview has content size 1000x1000, the button launch some background process.
Here is what I have done in the main controller:

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {    
    [window makeKeyAndVisible];
    [scrollView setContentSize:CGSizeMake(1000, 1000)];
    model=[[Model alloc] init];
}

- (IBAction) click:(id)sender{
     NSLog(@"click");
     thread=[[NSThread alloc] initWithTarget:model selector:@selector(launchTimer) object:nil];
     [thread start];
}

Everything looks clear I think. And this is content of the Model implementation:

- (id) init{
     self=[super init];
     if(self!=nil){
          timer=nil;
     }
     return self;
}

- (void) launchTimer{
     NSLog(@"launchTimer");
     NSAutoreleasePool *pool=[[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
     NSRunLoop *runLoop=[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop];
     timer=[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.1 target:self selector:@selector(tick) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
     [runLoop run];
     [pool release];
}

- (void) tick{     
     NSLog(@"tick");
}

So I have create timer which must works in another run loop, right? So it is mean that when I move my scroll view there isn't any delay with invoking tick method, right?

To very simple check it I add breakpoint into tick method which "Sound out and auto continue" and then launch this application on my iPhone. And what I notice in it? When I click on the button I hear a chain of sounds on my Mac, everything looks good, but when I begin to scroll the scrollView this sounds begin to idle! The delay between sounds could be sometimes about 0.5-0.6 of second - it's more than in 5 times longer than I set in the timer.

Could you tell me where is a problem?



By the way, I'm seeing in Debugger Console the next:

Running…
[Switching to thread 11779]
[Switching to thread 11779]
(gdb) continue
2009-10-26 13:36:55.232 testthreads[530:207] click
2009-10-26 13:36:55.270 testthreads[530:5023] launchTimer
[Switching to thread 12803]
[Switching to thread 12803]
2009-10-26 13:36:55.839 testthreads[530:5023] tick
2009-10-26 13:36:55.940 testthreads[530:5023] tick
2009-10-26 13:36:56.051 testthreads[530:5023] tick
...

I don't know and can't find anywhere what does it mean [530:5023] and [530:207]. Are numbers 207 and 5023 mean different threads? If it is so, then my tick method invokes in another thread with scrollview controller but why I get idle there?

Thanks