How to change navigation bar color in iOS 7 or 6?

Question

I want to change the color of the navigation bar color, but I'm not sure whether or not I should change the tint or the background. I know iOS 7 is going for a more flat design (even recommending removing gradients), but I am having trouble deciphering the two. Even if I set a background color, it doesn't do anything.

In this image, the background is set to green, but the bar is still blue:

Answer 1

The behavior of tintColor for bars has changed on iOS 7.0. It no longer affects the bar's background and behaves as described for the tintColor property added to UIView. To tint the bar's background, please use -barTintColor.

navController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor navigationColor];

Answer 2

If you want to have a solid color for your navigation bar in iOS 6 similar to iOS 7 use this:

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundImage:[[UIImage alloc] init] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault]; [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBackgroundColor:[UIColor greenColor]]; 

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in iOS 7 use the barTintColor like this:

navigationController.navigationBar.barTintColor = [UIColor greenColor]; 

or

 [[UINavigationBar appearance] setBarTintColor:[UIColor greenColor]];