customize uitabbarcontroller appearance

Question

Is it possible to change the way UITabBarController's look?

For example to arrange the tabBarItems vertically (instead of horizontally) and in the center of the view (instead of locked to the bottom)

Answer 1

For the changes you want, no.

What you are describing is an entirely custom interface that you will need to design from scratch.

Answer 2

It's impossible using the UITabBarController component. But you can use a UIView with lot of buttons that perform the same function of the UITabBarController buttons and place them as you want.

Answer 3

No as the other say, you can't. You can customize visually only the UITabBar using appearance API, but you can't change its layout.
What you want to do can be easily achieved by using the UIViewController container API ( Read Managing Child View Controllers in a Custom Container ) and simple view. Or using storyboards with custom segue.