You should use a UITabBarController to display the UITabBar rather than doing it directly.
Then use a UITableViewController as the view controller for a given tab. Though I get the impression that you want to present descendent UITableViews when a row is selected. If this is the case, you ought to use a UINavigationController as the tab bar's view controller, and let it manage your UITableViewControllers.
Remember that on iOS you really need to use the view controller pattern - the frameworks take care of a lot of things for you under the hood.
Follow-up:
OK, the following straightforward implementation works just fine for me. Please ignore the many obvious issues with this code (beginning with the fact that I hacked it all together in the application delegate!); it's intended purely as a model for how your controllers should be glued together.
#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@interface AppDelegate : UIResponder <UIApplicationDelegate, UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource>
@property (strong, nonatomic) UIWindow *window;
@property (strong, nonatomic) UINavigationController *navController;
@end
@implementation AppDelegate
@synthesize window = _window;
@synthesize navController = _navController;
- (void)dealloc
{
[_navController release];
[_window release];
[super dealloc];
}
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
self.window = [[[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]] autorelease];
UITableViewController *rootTVC = [[UITableViewController alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewStylePlain];
[[rootTVC tableView] setDelegate:self];
[[rootTVC tableView] setDataSource:self];
[rootTVC setTitle:@"Root Table"];
UINavigationController *navController = [[UINavigationController alloc] initWithRootViewController:rootTVC];
[rootTVC release];
[navController setTitle:@"My Table"];
UIViewController *anotherViewController = [[UIViewController alloc] init];
[anotherViewController setTitle:@"Not the table"];
UITabBarController *tbc = [[UITabBarController alloc] init];
[tbc setViewControllers:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:navController, anotherViewController, nil]];
[self setNavController:navController];
[navController release];
[anotherViewController release];
[[self window] setRootViewController:tbc];
[tbc release];
self.window.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
[self.window makeKeyAndVisible];
return YES;
}
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView
{
return 1;
}
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section
{
return 10;
}
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
NSString *reuseIdentifier = @"foo";
UITableViewCell *cell = [[tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:reuseIdentifier] retain];
if (! cell) {
cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:reuseIdentifier];
}
[[cell textLabel] setText:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Row %d", [indexPath row]]];
return [cell autorelease];
}
- (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
[tableView deselectRowAtIndexPath:indexPath animated:YES];
UITableViewController *newTVC = [[UITableViewController alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewStylePlain];
[newTVC setTitle:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Table %d", [indexPath row]]];
[[newTVC tableView] setDelegate:self];
[[newTVC tableView] setDataSource:self];
[[self navController] pushViewController:newTVC animated:YES];
}
@end
