How can I change the text and icon colors for tabBarItems in iOS 7?

Ed's answer is perfect, but let me add one thing. TabBar is in default translucent thus affected by the color of view under the TabBar (i.e. each member viewController's view's color affects TabBar appearance.).

So I set below code not to be affected.

self.tabBarController.tabBar.translucent = false;

Together with Ed's answer here is a complete code I use now.

self.tabBarController.tabBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blackColor];
self.tabBarController.tabBar.translucent = false;
self.tabBarController.tabBar.tintColor = [UIColor blueColor];

Code free way to change text color in tab bar:

If you are just using iOS 10 then you may change the Image Tint in your Tab Bar

If you are also supporting iOS 9 and lower, then you must also add tintColor to your user definer runtime attributes in each tab bar item

if you also wish to change your icon color make sure the correct color image is in your assest folder and change Render as to Original Image

There are two things you need to do for this:

1) If you want to customize the TabBar itself, you need to set the barTintColor for the tabBarController:

    // this will generate a black tab bar
    tabBarController.tabBar.barTintColor = [UIColor blackColor];

    // this will give selected icons and text your apps tint color
    tabBarController.tabBar.tintColor = appTintColor;  // appTintColor is a UIColor *

2) Set the tabBarItem text appearance for each state that you want to override:

[[UITabBarItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSFontAttributeName : [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-Bold" size:10.0f],
                                                    NSForegroundColorAttributeName : appTintColor
                                                    } forState:UIControlStateSelected];


// doing this results in an easier to read unselected state then the default iOS 7 one
[[UITabBarItem appearance] setTitleTextAttributes:@{NSFontAttributeName : [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue-Bold" size:10.0f],
                                                    NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor colorWithRed:.5 green:.5 blue:.5 alpha:1]
                                                    } forState:UIControlStateNormal];

This worked for me, to tint not active items in the tabbar

UITabBarItem *item = [self.tabBar.items objectAtIndex:1];

// here you need to use the icon with the color you want, as it will be rendered as it is

item.image = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"unselected.png"] imageWithRenderingMode:UIImageRenderingModeAlwaysOriginal];

// this icon is used for selected tab and it will get tinted as defined in

self.tabBar.tintColor
item.selectedImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"selected.png"];