UIBarButtonItem setTintColor doesn't work on iOS7

Question

In iOS6, I used this code to make my UIBarButtonItem:

UIBarButtonItem* validate = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc]initWithTitle:@"MyTitle" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:self action:@selector(actionValidate)];
    [validate setTintColor:[UIColor orangeColor]];
    self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = validate;

It works fine in iOS6 but in iOS7, the color of the button changes only when you push it.. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

In iOS7 you if you need to change the navigationBar buttons color, you must set tintColor for the navgationBar not the for specific barButton any more.

navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor orangeColor];

Edit: this works in iOS7, you need to do the check:

float systemVersion = [[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion] floatValue];
if (systemVersion >= 7.0)
{
    navigationController.navigationBar.tintColor = [UIColor orangeColor]
}

Answer 2

I couldn't get @Chris's method to work (iOS 8 like @Adama says).

My use case is that I want to set all UIToolbar & UINavigationBar buttons to a default colour. So using the UIAppearance API:

UIBarButtonItem.appearance().setTitleTextAttributes([NSForegroundColorAttributeName : UIColor.redColor()], forState: .Normal)