I've got an app where the background needs to be set depending on user preference. The user can change this at any time via settings tab. I've got it working by checking NSUserDefaults in viewWillAppear and setting self.view.backgroundColor. This is really clunky.

The right approach (I thought) is to set the background in the root view and for every views that gets on the stack inherit the background. So in viewDidLoad, I've got

self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];

I would have thought this should work. But all I get is a clear background. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.