How to change text on a back button

Try

self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Back" style:UIBarButtonItemStylePlain target:nil action:nil] autorelease];

I found that by looking at the backBarButtonItem docs in Apple's docs for UINavigationItem.

Marc W's approach worked great once I figured out which controller to apply it to: the one being re-titled, not the one on top. So if this is the navigation stack:

(bottom)  ControllerA -> ControllerB  (top)

...and you want to give a shorter title for ControllerA in the back-button displayed when ControllerB is on top, you apply the property change to ControllerA.

So it's more in the context of self.title, not like the other left/right-bar-button setters.