Can you make the settings in Settings.bundle default even if you don’t open the Settings App

If I understood you correctly, you want to avoid having default values specified twice (once as “DefaultValue” keys in your Settings.bundle/Root.plist file, and once in your app initialization code) so you do not have to keep them in sync.

Since Settings.bundle is stored within the app bundle itself, you can just read the default values given there. I put together some sample code that looks at the Settings bundle and reads the default values for every key there. Note that this does not write out the default keys; if they don’t exist, you’ll need to read and register them at every launch (feel free to change this). I’ve only done some cursory tests, so make sure it works for you in all cases.

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {    
    NSString *name = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:@"name"];
    NSLog(@"name before is %@", name);

    // Note: this will not work for boolean values as noted by bpapa below.
    // If you use booleans, you should use objectForKey above and check for null
    if(!name) {
        [self registerDefaultsFromSettingsBundle];
        name = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:@"name"];
    }
    NSLog(@"name after is %@", name);
}

- (void)registerDefaultsFromSettingsBundle {
    NSString *settingsBundle = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"Settings" ofType:@"bundle"];
    if(!settingsBundle) {
        NSLog(@"Could not find Settings.bundle");
        return;
    }

    NSDictionary *settings = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:[settingsBundle stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Root.plist"]];
    NSArray *preferences = [settings objectForKey:@"PreferenceSpecifiers"];

    NSMutableDictionary *defaultsToRegister = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithCapacity:[preferences count]];
    for(NSDictionary *prefSpecification in preferences) {
        NSString *key = [prefSpecification objectForKey:@"Key"];
        if(key && [[prefSpecification allKeys] containsObject:@"DefaultValue"]) {
            [defaultsToRegister setObject:[prefSpecification objectForKey:@"DefaultValue"] forKey:key];
        }
    }

    [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] registerDefaults:defaultsToRegister];
    [defaultsToRegister release];
}