How do you set the duration for UICollectionView Animations?

To solve problem without hack that was proposed in the answer by gavrix
you could subclass UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes with new property CABasicAnimation *transformAnimation, than create custom transformation with a suitable duration and assign it to attributes in initialLayoutAttributesForAppearingItemAtIndexPath, then in UICollectionViewCell apply the attributes as needed:

@interface AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes : UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes
@property (nonatomic, strong)  CABasicAnimation *transformAnimation;
@end

@implementation AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes
- (id)copyWithZone:(NSZone *)zone
{
    AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes *attributes = [super copyWithZone:zone];
    attributes.transformAnimation = _transformAnimation;
    return attributes;
}

- (BOOL)isEqual:(id)other {
    if (other == self) {
        return YES;
    }
    if (!other || ![[other class] isEqual:[self class]]) {
        return NO;
    }
    if ([(( AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes *) other) transformAnimation] != [self transformAnimation]) {
        return NO;
    }

    return YES;
}
@end

In Layout class

- (UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes *)initialLayoutAttributesForAppearingItemAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)itemIndexPath {
    AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes* attributes = (AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes* )[super initialLayoutAttributesForAppearingItemAtIndexPath:itemIndexPath];

    CABasicAnimation *transformAnimation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"transform"];
    transformAnimation.duration = 1.0f;
    CGFloat height = [self collectionViewContentSize].height;

    transformAnimation.fromValue = [NSValue valueWithCATransform3D:CATransform3DMakeTranslation(0, 2*height, height)];
    transformAnimation.toValue = [NSValue valueWithCATransform3D:CATransform3DMakeTranslation(0, attributes.bounds.origin.y, 0)];
    transformAnimation.removedOnCompletion = NO;
    transformAnimation.fillMode = kCAFillModeForwards;
    attributes.transformAnimation = transformAnimation;
    return attributes;
}

+ (Class)layoutAttributesClass { 
    return [AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes class]; 
}

then in UICollectionViewCell apply the attributes

- (void) applyLayoutAttributes:(AnimationCollectionViewLayoutAttributes *)layoutAttributes
{
    [[self layer] addAnimation:layoutAttributes.transformAnimation forKey:@"transform"];
}