iOS: is Core Graphics implemented on top of OpenGL?

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Yes, on iOS Core Graphics (Quartz) appears to be layered on top of OpenGL ES for drawing that targets the screen, although not in an explicit way that we have access to.

Core Graphics takes vector elements (lines, arcs, etc.) and some raster ones (images) and processes them for display to the screen or for other forms of output (PDF files, printing, etc.). If the target is the screen on iOS, those vector elements will be hosted in a CALayer, either directly or through the backing layer of a UIView.

These Core Animation layers are effectively wrappers around rectangular textures on the GPU, which is how Core Animation can provide the smooth translation, scaling, and rotation of layers on even the original iPhone hardware. I can’t find a reference for it right now, but at least one WWDC presentation states that OpenGL ES is used by Core Animation to communicate with the GPU to perform this hardware acceleration. Something similar can be observed on the new dual-GPU MacBook Pros, where the more powerful GPU kicks in when interacting with an application using Core Animation.

Because Core Graphics rasterizes the vector and raster elements into a CALayer when drawing to the screen, and a CALayer effectively wraps around an OpenGL ES texture, I would place OpenGL ES below Core Graphics on iOS, but only for the case where Core Graphics is rendering to the screen. The reason for the side-by-side placement in the hierarchy you saw may be due to three factors: on the Mac, not all views are layer-backed, so they may not be hardware accelerated in the same way; we can’t really interact with the OpenGL ES backing of standard UI elements, so from a developer’s point of view they are distinct concepts; and Core Graphics can be used to render to offscreen contexts, like PDF files or images.

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