Changing font in UITabBarItem

Question

As per: How to change the Color of text in UITabBarItem in iOS 5

It looks like the solution may be sending the message to the appearance proxy, instead of one item:

(Deprecated in iOS 7.0+)

[[UITabBarItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{UITextAttributeFont: [UIFont fontWithName:@"AmericanTypewriter" size:20.0f]} forState:UIControlStateNormal];

For iOS 7.0+ use:

[[UITabBarItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSFontAttributeName: [UIFont fontWithName:@"AmericanTypewriter" size:20.0f]} forState:UIControlStateNormal];

Swift way, for lazies:

UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSFontAttributeName: UIFont.systemFontOfSize(10)], forState: .normal)
UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSFontAttributeName: UIFont.systemFontOfSize(10)], forState: .selected)

Swift 4.1 and custom font

UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont(name: "Montserrat-Medium", size: 11)], for: .normal)
UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont(name: "Montserrat-Medium", size: 11)], for: .selected)

Swift 3

UITabBarItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSFontAttributeName: UIFont(name: "OpenSans", size: 10)!], for: .normal)