How to change Navigation Bar color in iOS 7?

How do I change the Navigation Bar color in iOS 7?

Basically I want to achieve something like the Twitter Nav Bar (updated Twitter for iOS7 that is). I embedded-in a nav bar atop a view controller. All I want is to change the nav bar color to light blue along with the utility bar at the top. I can't seem to find an option in my storyboard.

The behavior of tintColor for bars has changed in iOS 7.0. It no longer affects the bar's background.

From the documentation:

barTintColor Class Reference

The tint color to apply to the navigation bar background.

@property(nonatomic, retain) UIColor *barTintColor

Discussion
This color is made translucent by default unless you set the translucent property to NO.

Availability

Available in iOS 7.0 and later.

Declared In
UINavigationBar.h

Code

NSArray *ver = [[UIDevice currentDevice].systemVersion componentsSeparatedByString:@"."];
if ([[ver objectAtIndex:0] intValue] >= 7) {
    // iOS 7.0 or later   
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor redColor];
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = NO;
}else {
    // iOS 6.1 or earlier
    self.navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor redColor];
}

We can also use this to check iOS Version as mention in iOS 7 UI Transition Guide

if (floor(NSFoundationVersionNumber) <= NSFoundationVersionNumber_iOS_6_1) {
        // iOS 6.1 or earlier
        self.navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor redColor];
    } else {
        // iOS 7.0 or later     
        self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor redColor];
        self.navigationController.navigationBar.translucent = NO;
    }

EDIT Using xib

Doing what the original question asked—to get the old Twitter's Nav Bar look, blue background with white text—is very easy to do just using the Interface Builder in Xcode.

• Using the Document Outline, select your Navigation Bar.
• In the Attributes Inspector, in the Navigation Bar group, change the Style from Default to Black. This changes the background colour of the Navigation and Status bars to black, and their text to white. So the battery and other icons and text in the status bar will look white when the app is running.
• In the same Navigation Bar group, change the Bar Tint to the colour of your liking.
• If you have Bar Button items in your Navigation Bar, those will still show their text in the default blue colour, so in the Attributes Inspector, View group, change the Tint to White Colour.

That should get you what you want. Here is a screenshot that would make it easier to see where to make the changes.

Note that changing only the Bar Tint doesn't change the text colour in the Navigation Bar or the Status Bar. The Style also needs to be changed.

self.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blueColor];
self.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
self.navigationBar.translucent = NO;

// *barTintColor* sets the background color
// *tintColor* sets the button's color

In a Navigation based app you can put the code in AppDelegate. A more detailed code could be:

// Navigation bar appearance (background and title)

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[UIColor titleColor], NSForegroundColorAttributeName, [UIFont fontWithName:@"FontNAme" size:titleSize], NSFontAttributeName, nil]];

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor barColor]];

// Navigation bar buttons appearance

[[UIBarButtonItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[UIColor textBarColor], NSForegroundColorAttributeName, shadowColor, NSShadowAttributeName, [UIFont fontWithName:@"FontName" size:titleSize], NSFontAttributeName, nil];

In viewDidLoad, set:

    self.navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blueColor];

Change ( blueColor ) to whatever color you'd like.