Compiling against 5.1 SDK forces new UIPopoverController "slide in" presentation of popovers -- how to disable?

This change seems poorly thought out. Sure guys, we break anything in the detail view that uses a swipe. Awesome!

To answer your 'bring back the black' question, if it's merely a question of the top navbar color, you could use the appearance proxy. For example:

[[UINavigationBar appearance] setTintColor:[UIColor blackColor]];

The appearance proxy can be set very specifically if necessary; it has a containers model. There's a very good WWDC video on it.

With respect to just reverting to the old behavior with the new compiler, frankly, I'd love to know as well. The new behavior also breaks action sheets in the master view; previously, when the master view was presented in a popover, they'd do the right thing. Now, it's an assertion failure.

Ok I had the same issue, this may help, it removes the black background that reaches to the bottom of the screen....

call this after you display your popoup...

- (void)removeInnerShadow {    UIWindow *window = [[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] window];    for (UIView *windowSubView in window.subviews) {            if ([NSStringFromClass([windowSubView class]) isEqualToString:@"UIDimmingView"]) {            for (UIView *dimmingViewSubviews in windowSubView.subviews) {                for (UIView *popoverSubview in dimmingViewSubviews.subviews) {                    popoverSubview.layer.shadowOpacity=0;                    popoverSubview.layer.masksToBounds = NO;                     if([NSStringFromClass([popoverSubview class]) isEqualToString:@"_UIPopoverSlidingChromeView"])                     {                         popoverSubview.layer.shadowOpacity=0;                         popoverSubview.layer.masksToBounds = NO;                     }                }            }        }    }}

It is possible to revert! - with MGSplitViewController. It gives you a similar API to the iOS control but with old popover and much more control.