Make Flipboard-like page/panel-animations ?

Question

I have always wondered how Flipboard works, how labels in intersections warp perspectively perfectly and wonderfully. How the hell do they do that ? I honestly wonder every single time I open it, so I figured, I'd like to learn to do that too. Or if you happen to know the app Clear (a to-do manager) which also warps and shears views beautifully. What should I do to learn to do this kind of magic ? Are those Core Graphics animations ? It is not a "simple" image animation, right ? I know this is not a code-related problem, but here the people know where I can find out/learn about this kind of stuff. Also, I think Core Graphics lets you create gradients and other magical things, correct ? I'd love to know where to learn that. One thing I want to mention is for instance the Tiny Wings tutorial from Ray Wenderlich where he sets up all the hills with code that I am really not understanding at all. I have been learning and working in Objective-C for about 2.5 years now and I think I have gained a very broad range of knowledge in the language. (Below: chinese characters(to me) from Ray Wenderlich's Tiny Wings Tutorial). What is this gl___ ?

glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, _stripes.texture.name);
glDisableClientState(GL_COLOR_ARRAY);
glColor4f(1, 1, 1, 1);
glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, _hillVertices);
glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, _hillTexCoords);
glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP, 0, (GLsizei)_nHillVertices); 

Answer 1

GL_ is probably a graphics library.