What similar functionality method (viewWillAppear) exists on UIView?

How about the following from the UIView reference

willMoveToSuperview:, didMoveToSuperview - Implement these methods as needed to track the movement of the current view in your view hierarchy.

this will at least tell you when it is added to a view hierarchy but there is no guarantee that the view hierarchy is presented/viewable.

No, but you can forward that notification to the desired view from your view controller.