The docs say that the whole subview hierarchy can be created in -loadView. But there's also this -viewDidLoad method which sounds nice to ovewrite for actually building the hierarchy, when the view loaded. I guess it's a matter of taste only. But maybe doing so in -viewDidLoad hast the advantage that the view controller already adjusted the frame of the view correctly to accomodate for the status bar or any other kind of bar like tab bar or tool bar?