How to style UITextview to like Rounded Rect text field?

For the best effect you have to use a custom (stretchable) background image. This is also how the UITextField's rounded border is drawn.

One way I found to do it without programming is to make the textfield background transparent, then place a Round Rect Button behind it. Make sure to change the button settings to disable it and uncheck the Disable adjusts image checkbox.

Tried the Quartzcore code and found it caused lag on my old 3G (I use for testing). Not a big issue but if you want to be as inclusive as possible for different ios and hardware I recommend Andrew_L's answer above - or make your own images and apply accordingly.

Here is my solution:

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];


    self.textView.text = self.messagePlaceholderText;
    self.textView.layer.backgroundColor = [[UIColor whiteColor] CGColor];
    self.textView.layer.borderColor = [[[UIColor grayColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:0.3] CGColor];
    self.textView.layer.borderWidth = 0.5;
    self.textView.layer.cornerRadius = 5.5f;
    self.textView.layer.masksToBounds = YES;
    self.textView.textColor = [[UIColor grayColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:0.4];
}

- (void)textViewDidBeginEditing:(UITextView *)textView {
    if (textView == self.tvMessage) {
        // Delete placeholder text
        if ([self.textView.text isEqualToString:self.messagePlaceholderText]) {
            self.textView.text = @"";
            self.textView.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
        }
    }
}

- (void)textViewDidEndEditing:(UITextView *)textView {
    if (textView == self.tvMessage) {
        // Write placeholder text
        if (self.textView.text.length == 0) {
            self.textView.text = self.messagePlaceholderText;
            self.textView.textColor = [[UIColor grayColor] colorWithAlphaComponent:0.4];
        }
    }
}