CALayer property animations are enabled by default. When this is undesirable, they can be disabled as follows.

Swift

CATransaction.begin()
CATransaction.setDisableActions(true)

// change layer properties that you don't want to animate

CATransaction.commit()

Objective-C

[CATransaction begin];
[CATransaction setDisableActions:YES];

// change layer properties that you don't want to animate

[CATransaction commit];