The only difference is in where the view is added: whether it is the frontmost view (addSubview:), or it is before the 5th subview, (insertSubview:atIndex:) or if it is immediately behind another subview (insertSubview:aboveSubview:).
It doesn’t really matter which view you are adding the child viewController to. If a view of a viewController is added to another viewController you need set it properly. tableViewController.view.frame = self.contentView.bounds; [self.contentView addSubview:tableViewController.view]; /*Calling the addChildViewController: method also calls the child’s willMoveToParentViewController: method automatically */ [self addChildViewController:tableViewController]; [tableViewController didMoveToParentViewController:self]; Source code
You cannot add a subview to UIImageView in interface builder for reasons only known to Apple! You are right in saying that you can addSubview programmatically, but then, the overhead of setting autoresizing masks and placements of subviews should all be handled in code, which is cumbersome. So there is an easy workaround. Instead of … Read more