[ios] make UITableViewCell selectable only while editing

Have you tried setting the selection properties of your tableView like this:

tableView.allowsMultipleSelection = NO; tableView.allowsMultipleSelectionDuringEditing = YES; tableView.allowsSelection = NO; tableView.allowsSelectionDuringEditing YES; 

If you want more fine-grain control over when selection is allowed you can override - (NSIndexPath *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView willSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath in your UITableView delegate. The documentation states:

Return Value An index-path object that confirms or alters the selected row. Return an NSIndexPath object other than indexPath if you want another cell to be selected. Return nil if you don't want the row selected. 

You can have this method return nil in cases where you don't want the selection to happen.