I have 5 UIImageViews for displaying 5 images. For my app, I need swap the order of them depending on some events. I achieve this by calling: [anImageView1 removeFromSuperview]; [self.view insertSubview:anImageView1 aboveSubview:anImageView2]; Recently, I've come across a different method for doing this using 1 UIView and 5 UIImageViews. Each layer of UIImageViews are added to this UIView by calling [aView.layer addSublayer:anImageView1.layer]; [aView.layer addSublayer:anImageView2.layer]; etc. and then in order to swap the order of things by calling [anImageView1.layer removeFromSuperLayer]; [aView.layer insertSublayer:anImageView1 above: anImageView2] Both methods work fine, but can someone please point out which method is better and why? I really can't seem to be able to find much on CALayer... Please help! Thank you so much!