How to draw a transparent UIToolbar or UINavigationBar in iOS7

I would like an entirely transparent UIToolbar and/or UINavigationBar. I have tried the various incantations suggested for pre- and post-iOS 5 but none seem to work any more.

How might this be accomplished in iOS 7?

Swift 3 (iOS 10)

Transparent UIToolbar

self.toolbar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(),
                                forToolbarPosition: .any,
                                barMetrics: .default)
self.toolbar.setShadowImage(UIImage(), forToolbarPosition: .any)

Transparent UINavigationBar

self.navigationBar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), for: .default)
self.navigationBar.shadowImage = UIImage()
self.navigationBar.isTranslucent = true

---

Swift < 3

Transparent UIToolbar

self.toolbar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(),
                                forToolbarPosition: UIBarPosition.Any,
                                barMetrics: UIBarMetrics.Default)
self.toolbar.setShadowImage(UIImage(),
                            forToolbarPosition: UIBarPosition.Any)

Transparent UINavigationBar

self.navigationBar.setBackgroundImage(UIImage(), forBarMetrics: UIBarMetrics.Default)
self.navigationBar.shadowImage = UIImage()
self.navigationBar.translucent = true

---

Objective-C

Transparent UIToolbar

[self.toolbar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new]
              forToolbarPosition:UIBarPositionAny
                      barMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
[self.toolbar setShadowImage:[UIImage new]
          forToolbarPosition:UIBarPositionAny];

---

Transparent UINavigationBar

[self.navigationBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage new]
                         forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
self.navigationBar.shadowImage = [UIImage new];
self.navigationBar.translucent = YES;

---

Discussion

Setting translucent to YES on the navigation bar does the trick, due to a behavior discussed in the UINavigationBar documentation. I'll report here the relevant fragment:

> If you set this property to YES on a navigation bar with an opaque custom background image, the navigation bar will apply a system opacity less than 1.0 to the image.

---

Final result

If you want to do it through the entire app you should use the UIAppearance proxy (iOS5+):

UINavigationBar *navigationBarAppearance = [UINavigationBar appearance];
navigationBarAppearance.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[navigationBarAppearance setBackgroundImage:[[UIImage alloc] init] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
navigationBarAppearance.shadowImage = [[UIImage alloc] init];

Docs: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIAppearance_Protocol/Reference/Reference.html

Article: http://nshipster.com/uiappearance/

Try:

[navBar setBackgroundImage:[UIImage alloc] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];

@implementation MyCustomNavigationBar

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame
{
    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    if (self) {
        [self setup];
    }
    return self;
}

- (id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder {
    self = [super initWithCoder:aDecoder];
    if (self) {
        [self setup];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)setup {
    [self setupBackground];
}

- (void)setupBackground {
    self.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
    self.tintColor = [UIColor clearColor];
    
    // make navigation bar overlap the content
    self.translucent = YES; 
    self.opaque = NO;
    
    // remove the default background image by replacing it with a clear image
    [self setBackgroundImage:[self.class maskedImage] forBarMetrics:UIBarMetricsDefault];
    
    // remove defualt bottom shadow
    [self setShadowImage: [UIImage new]]; 
}

+ (UIImage *)maskedImage {
    const float colorMask[6] = {222, 255, 222, 255, 222, 255};
    UIImage *img = [UIImage imageNamed:@"nav-white-pixel-bg.jpg"];
    return [UIImage imageWithCGImage: CGImageCreateWithMaskingColors(img.CGImage, colorMask)];
}

@end

Something I stumbled upon is that if I created a subclassed UINavigationBar and then created an empty -(void)drawRect: method, I would get a transparent navigation bar. I only tested this in iOS 7.*, but it seemed to work!