Is it allowed to change the background of an UISearchBar?

I have been searching thru the web but cant find a confirmed answer. There are ways like removing the subview within the searchbar.subviews but is that allowed?

If not then, aside from changing the tintColor of SearchBar, or use a textfi开发者_JAVA百科eld instead, is there a way that wont break apple's rule and still being able to customize the background of searchBar?

Thanks!

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You are not breaking apple's rules if you are not conflicting with private API's.

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I worked on a shipping app that made the background of the search bar transparent. There were no problems with this.

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A solution I've seen used a lot (albeit only on toolbars and navigation bars, so I'm not 100% sure it'll work the same way): subclass UISearchBar and override its -drawRect:, drawing your own background image within the view's bounds.