Do I always have to call [super viewDidLoad] in the -viewDidLoad method?

Question

In Apple\'s scrollView example they don\'t call that. I always thought that\'s a must. Why should I call that anyways?

Answer 1

No, you don't need to call [super viewDidLoad]. Edit: But read below, because I think you definitely should.

Let's be real here: Apple is not going to break thousands of apps, including those based on their published sample code, by deciding an event they're not currently handling suddenly needs to do something that developers may or may not want to stop and it's critical that if you don't need different behavior you not stop the event.

Edit: Having watched how Apple handles compatibility for an extra year, I now recommend learning and using the correct pattern. While I doubt your application binary will ever suddenly stop working, it's clear that the iPhone detects which SDK your binary was built against and modifies some OS behaviour based on this.

Apple might one day require a particular pattern be followed on some future SDK. This would not affect you until you rebuild with the latest Xcode + SDK, but then you'd get these breaks without any source code changes. Learn and follow the pattern to be safe.