how do I properly change my status bar style in swift 2/ iOS 9?

Solution 1:

Apple have added the capability to change the status bar style in the deployment info. Simply choose 'Light'.

Also set View controller-based status bar appearance key to NO in the Info.plist

Solution 2:

I always did this way.

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.
    }

    //Changing Status Bar
    override func preferredStatusBarStyle() -> UIStatusBarStyle {

        //LightContent
        return UIStatusBarStyle.LightContent

        //Default
        //return UIStatusBarStyle.Default
    }
}

It works in any swift 2.x version. This requires that you set View controller-based status bar appearance in your Info.plist file to YES.