For me, the following worked fine:
tableView.allowsSelection = NO;
This means didSelectRowAt# simply won't work. That is to say, touching a row of the table, as such, will do absolutely nothing. (And hence, obviously, there will never be a selected-animation.)
(Note that if, on the cells, you have UIButton or any other controls, of course those controls will still work. Any controls you happen to have on the table cell, are totally unrelated to UITableView's ability to allow you to "select a row" using didSelectRowAt#.)
