Blur UIView Category (Credit: http://damir.me/ios7-blurring-techniques) Basically take a screenshot of a particular UIView and blur that image. But programmatically taking a screenshot in iOS 6, using renderInContext:, took too long. Fortunately iOS 7 includes a new method in UIView called drawViewHierarchyInRect:afterScreenUpdates: that does th…

UIView+BlurredUIView.h

// YourUIView.m (UIView)
#import "UIImage+ImageEffects.h"

-(UIImage *)blurredSnapshot
{
    // Create the image context
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.bounds.size, NO, self.window.screen.scale);

    // There he is! The new API method
    [self drawViewHierarchyInRect:self.frame afterScreenUpdates:NO];

    // Get the snapshot
    UIImage *snapshotImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

    // Now apply the blur effect using Apple's UIImageEffect category
    UIImage *blurredSnapshotImage = [snapshotImage applyLightEffect];

    // Or apply any other effects available in "UIImage+ImageEffects.h"
    // UIImage *blurredSnapshotImage = [snapshotImage applyDarkEffect];
    // UIImage *blurredSnapshotImage = [snapshotImage applyExtraLightEffect];

    // Be nice and clean your mess up
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return blurredSnapshotImage;
}