Can I override scroll view's automatic behavior to scroll to the first responder?

I didn't test this particular situation, but I've managed to prevent a scrollview from bouncing at the top and bottom by subclassing the scrollview and overriding setContentOffset: and setContentOffset:animated:. The scrollview calls this at every scroll movement, so I'm fairly certain they will be called when scrolling to the textfield.

You can use the delegate method textFieldDidBeginEditing: to determine when the scroll is allowed.

In code:

- (void)textFieldDidBeginEditing:(UITextField *)textField
{
    self.blockingTextViewScroll = YES;
}

-(void)setContentOffset:(CGPoint)contentOffset
{
    if(self.blockingTextViewScroll)
    {
        self.blockingTextViewScroll = NO;
    }
    else
    {
        [super setContentOffset:contentOffset];
    }
}


-(void)setContentOffset:(CGPoint)contentOffset animated:(BOOL)animated
{
    if(self.blockingTextViewScroll)
    {
        self.blockingTextViewScroll = NO;
    }
    else
    {
        [super setContentOffset:contentOffset animated:animated];
    }
}

If your current scroll behaviour works with a setContentOffset: override, just place it inside the else blocks (or preferably, in a method you call from the else blocks).

In my project I have succeeded to achieve this by performing my scroll only after some delay.

- (void)keyboardWillShow:(NSNotification *)note
{
    NSDictionary *userInfo = note.userInfo;
    CGRect keyboardFrame = [[userInfo objectForKey:UIKeyboardFrameEndUserInfoKey] CGRectValue];

    UIEdgeInsets contentInsets = self.tableView.contentInset;
    contentInsets.bottom += keyboardFrame.size.height;

    [self.tableView setContentInset:contentInsets];
     [self performSelector:@selector(scrollToEditableCell) withObject:nil afterDelay:0];
}

Also there is other possibility to make your view with additional views to be first responder and fool scroll view where to scroll. Haven't tested this yet.