UISplitViewController programmatically without nib/xib

Declare your splitviewcontroller in your delegate header, use something like this in your didfinishlaunching

ensure you add the UISplitViewControllerDelegate to the detailedViewController header file and that you have the delegate methods aswell. remember to import relevant header files

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions 
{    

    splitViewController = [[UISplitViewController alloc] init];

    rootViewController *root = [[rootViewController alloc] init];
    detailedViewController *detail = [[detailedViewController alloc] init]; 

    UINavigationController *rootNav = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:root];

    UINavigationController *detailNav = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:detail];

    splitViewController.viewControllers = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:rootNav, detailNav, nil];
    splitViewController.delegate = detail;

    [window addSubview:splitViewController.view];

EDIT – as per Scott’s excellent suggestion below, don’t add to the windows subview, instead

    [self.window setRootViewController:(UIViewController*)splitViewController];  // that's the ticket
    [window makeKeyAndVisible];
    return YES;
}


//detailedView delegate methods
- (void)splitViewController:(UISplitViewController*)svc 
     willHideViewController:(UIViewController *)aViewController 
          withBarButtonItem:(UIBarButtonItem*)barButtonItem 
       forPopoverController:(UIPopoverController*)pc
{  
    [barButtonItem setTitle:@"your title"];



    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = barButtonItem;
}


- (void)splitViewController:(UISplitViewController*)svc 
     willShowViewController:(UIViewController *)aViewController 
  invalidatingBarButtonItem:(UIBarButtonItem *)barButtonItem
{
    self.navigationItem.leftBarButtonItem = nil;
}

I also prefer code to IB 😉