你可以重写drawPlaceholderInRect:(CGRect)rect来手动渲染占位符文本:

- (void) drawPlaceholderInRect:(CGRect)rect {
    [[UIColor blueColor] setFill];
    [[self placeholder] drawInRect:rect withFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:16]];
}

适用于iOS 6.0 +

[textfield setValue:your_color forKeyPath:@"_placeholderLabel.textColor"];

希望能有所帮助。

注意:苹果可能会拒绝(0.01%的机会)你的应用程序，因为我们正在访问私有API。这两年以来，我一直在我的所有项目中使用这个功能，但苹果并没有要求我这么做。

在Swift 3中

import UIKit

let TEXTFIELD_BLUE  = UIColor.blue
let TEXTFIELD_GRAY  = UIColor.gray

class DBTextField: UITextField {
    /// Tetxfield Placeholder Color
    @IBInspectable var palceHolderColor: UIColor = TEXTFIELD_GRAY
    func setupTextField () {
        self.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string:self.placeholder != nil ? self.placeholder! : "",
                                                            attributes:[NSForegroundColorAttributeName: palceHolderColor])
    }
}

class DBLocalizedTextField : UITextField {
    override func awakeFromNib() {
        super.awakeFromNib()
        self.placeholder = self.placeholder
    }
}

Swift 3.0 +故事板

为了改变故事板中的占位符颜色，使用next代码创建一个扩展。(如果您认为可以更新此代码，可以更清晰、更安全)。

extension UITextField {
    @IBInspectable var placeholderColor: UIColor {
        get {
            guard let currentAttributedPlaceholderColor = attributedPlaceholder?.attribute(NSForegroundColorAttributeName, at: 0, effectiveRange: nil) as? UIColor else { return UIColor.clear }
            return currentAttributedPlaceholderColor
        }
        set {
            guard let currentAttributedString = attributedPlaceholder else { return }
            let attributes = [NSForegroundColorAttributeName : newValue]

            attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: currentAttributedString.string, attributes: attributes)
        }
    }
}

Swift 4版本

extension UITextField {
    @IBInspectable var placeholderColor: UIColor {
        get {
            return attributedPlaceholder?.attribute(.foregroundColor, at: 0, effectiveRange: nil) as? UIColor ?? .clear
        }
        set {
            guard let attributedPlaceholder = attributedPlaceholder else { return }
            let attributes: [NSAttributedStringKey: UIColor] = [.foregroundColor: newValue]
            self.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: attributedPlaceholder.string, attributes: attributes)
        }
    }
}

Swift 5版本

extension UITextField {
    @IBInspectable var placeholderColor: UIColor {
        get {
            return attributedPlaceholder?.attribute(.foregroundColor, at: 0, effectiveRange: nil) as? UIColor ?? .clear
        }
        set {
            guard let attributedPlaceholder = attributedPlaceholder else { return }
            let attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key: UIColor] = [.foregroundColor: newValue]
            self.attributedPlaceholder = NSAttributedString(string: attributedPlaceholder.string, attributes: attributes)
        }
    }
}

你为什么不直接使用UIAppearance方法:

[[UILabel appearanceWhenContainedIn:[UITextField class], nil] setTextColor:[UIColor whateverColorYouNeed]];

重写drawPlaceholderInRect:将是正确的方式，但由于API(或文档)中的错误，它不起作用。

该方法永远不会在UITextField上被调用。

参见drawTextInRect on UITextField not called

你可以使用digdog的解决方案。因为我不确定这是否通过了苹果的审查，我选择了一个不同的解决方案:用我自己的标签覆盖文本字段，模仿占位符行为。

这有点乱。 代码看起来像这样(注意，我在TextField的子类中这样做):

@implementation PlaceholderChangingTextField

- (void) changePlaceholderColor:(UIColor*)color
{    
    // Need to place the overlay placeholder exactly above the original placeholder
    UILabel *overlayPlaceholderLabel = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(self.frame.origin.x + 8, self.frame.origin.y + 4, self.frame.size.width - 16, self.frame.size.height - 8)] autorelease];
    overlayPlaceholderLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
    overlayPlaceholderLabel.opaque = YES;
    overlayPlaceholderLabel.text = self.placeholder;
    overlayPlaceholderLabel.textColor = color;
    overlayPlaceholderLabel.font = self.font;
    // Need to add it to the superview, as otherwise we cannot overlay the buildin text label.
    [self.superview addSubview:overlayPlaceholderLabel];
    self.placeholder = nil;
}