UITableView backgroundColor always gray on iPad

Question

When I set the backgroundColor for my UITableView it works fine on iPhone (device and simulator) but NOT on the iPad simulator. Instead I get a lig

Answer 1

• Simulating iPad 2
• Running iOS 7.1 through 8.3
• Built from XCode 6.3

None of the above worked for my UIViewController->UITableView specified using a single XIB. What did work was moving the whole setup into a Storyboard, and setting the background color using the IB inspector.