抱歉添加了另一个答案，但我只是拉出了这样的东西，这创建了最接近uitextfield的占位符。

希望这能帮助到一些人。

-(void)textViewDidChange:(UITextView *)textView{
    if(textView.textColor == [UIColor lightGrayColor]){
        textView.textColor  = [UIColor blackColor]; // look at the comment section in this answer
        textView.text       = [textView.text substringToIndex: 0];// look at the comment section in this answer
    }else if(textView.text.length == 0){
        textView.text       = @"This is some placeholder text.";
        textView.textColor  = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
        textView.selectedRange = NSMakeRange(0, 0);
    }
}

-(void)textViewDidChangeSelection:(UITextView *)textView{
    if(textView.textColor == [UIColor lightGrayColor] && (textView.selectedRange.location != 0 || textView.selectedRange.length != 0)){
        textView.selectedRange = NSMakeRange(0, 0);
    }
}

我创建了一个实例变量来检查是否显示占位符:

BOOL showPlaceHolder;
UITextView * textView; // and also the textView

在viewDidLoad上设置:

[self setPlaceHolder]; 

下面是它的作用:

- (void)setPlaceholder
{
    textView.text = NSLocalizedString(@"Type your question here", @"placeholder");
    textView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
    self.showPlaceHolder = YES; //we save the state so it won't disappear in case you want to re-edit it
}

我还创建了一个按钮来退出键盘。您不必这样做，但这里很酷的事情是，如果没有输入任何内容，占位符将再次显示

- (void)textViewDidBeginEditing:(UITextView *)txtView 
{
    self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = [[UIBarButtonItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Done" style:UIBarButtonItemStyleDone target:self action:@selector(resignKeyboard)];
    if (self.showPlaceHolder == YES) 
    {
        textView.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
        textView.text = @"";
        self.showPlaceHolder = NO;
    }
}

- (void)resignKeyboard 
{
    [textView resignFirstResponder];
    //here if you created a button like I did to resign the keyboard, you should hide it
    if (textView.text.length == 0) {
        [self setPlaceholder];
    }       
}

简单的Swift 3解决方案

添加UITextViewDelegate到类中

设置你的textview .delegate = self

创建placeholderLabel和位置它在你的textview

现在动画placeholderLabel。alpha在textViewDidChange:

  func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
    let newAlpha: CGFloat = textView.text.isEmpty ? 1 : 0
    if placeholderLabel.alpha != newAlpha {
      UIView.animate(withDuration: 0.3) {
        self.placeholderLabel.alpha = newAlpha
      }
    }
  }

你可能不得不使用placeholderLabel位置来设置它，但这应该不会太难

下面是“SAMTextView”ObjC代码的Swift端口，作为对这个问题的第一批回答之一。我在iOS 8上进行了测试。我调整了一些东西，包括占位符文本的位置的边界偏移，因为原来的位置太高，太右了(在那个帖子的一个评论中使用了建议)。

我知道有很多简单的解决方案，但我喜欢子类化UITextView的方法，因为它是可重用的，而且我不必在使用它的机制时使类变得混乱。

斯威夫特2.2:

import UIKit

class PlaceholderTextView: UITextView {

    @IBInspectable var placeholderColor: UIColor = UIColor.lightGrayColor()
    @IBInspectable var placeholderText: String = ""

    override var font: UIFont? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var contentInset: UIEdgeInsets {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var textAlignment: NSTextAlignment {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var text: String? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var attributedText: NSAttributedString? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)
        setUp()
    }

    override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?) {
        super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer)
    }

    private func setUp() {
        NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, selector: #selector(PlaceholderTextView.textChanged(_:)),
                                                         name: UITextViewTextDidChangeNotification, object: self)
    }

    func textChanged(notification: NSNotification) {
        setNeedsDisplay()
    }

    func placeholderRectForBounds(bounds: CGRect) -> CGRect {
        var x = contentInset.left + 4.0
        var y = contentInset.top  + 9.0
        let w = frame.size.width - contentInset.left - contentInset.right - 16.0
        let h = frame.size.height - contentInset.top - contentInset.bottom - 16.0

        if let style = self.typingAttributes[NSParagraphStyleAttributeName] as? NSParagraphStyle {
            x += style.headIndent
            y += style.firstLineHeadIndent
        }
        return CGRect(x: x, y: y, width: w, height: h)
    }

    override func drawRect(rect: CGRect) {
        if text!.isEmpty && !placeholderText.isEmpty {
            let paragraphStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
            paragraphStyle.alignment = textAlignment
            let attributes: [ String: AnyObject ] = [
                NSFontAttributeName : font!,
                NSForegroundColorAttributeName : placeholderColor,
                NSParagraphStyleAttributeName  : paragraphStyle]

            placeholderText.drawInRect(placeholderRectForBounds(bounds), withAttributes: attributes)
        }
        super.drawRect(rect)
    }
}

斯威夫特4.2:

import UIKit

class PlaceholderTextView: UITextView {

    @IBInspectable var placeholderColor: UIColor = UIColor.lightGray
    @IBInspectable var placeholderText: String = ""

    override var font: UIFont? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var contentInset: UIEdgeInsets {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var textAlignment: NSTextAlignment {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var text: String? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    override var attributedText: NSAttributedString? {
        didSet {
            setNeedsDisplay()
        }
    }

    required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
        super.init(coder: aDecoder)
        setUp()
    }

    override init(frame: CGRect, textContainer: NSTextContainer?) {
        super.init(frame: frame, textContainer: textContainer)
    }

    private func setUp() {
        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self,
         selector: #selector(self.textChanged(notification:)),
         name: Notification.Name("UITextViewTextDidChangeNotification"),
         object: nil)
    }

    @objc func textChanged(notification: NSNotification) {
        setNeedsDisplay()
    }

    func placeholderRectForBounds(bounds: CGRect) -> CGRect {
        var x = contentInset.left + 4.0
        var y = contentInset.top  + 9.0
        let w = frame.size.width - contentInset.left - contentInset.right - 16.0
        let h = frame.size.height - contentInset.top - contentInset.bottom - 16.0

        if let style = self.typingAttributes[NSAttributedString.Key.paragraphStyle] as? NSParagraphStyle {
            x += style.headIndent
            y += style.firstLineHeadIndent
        }
        return CGRect(x: x, y: y, width: w, height: h)
    }

    override func draw(_ rect: CGRect) {
        if text!.isEmpty && !placeholderText.isEmpty {
            let paragraphStyle = NSMutableParagraphStyle()
            paragraphStyle.alignment = textAlignment
            let attributes: [NSAttributedString.Key: Any] = [
            NSAttributedString.Key(rawValue: NSAttributedString.Key.font.rawValue) : font!,
            NSAttributedString.Key(rawValue: NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor.rawValue) : placeholderColor,
            NSAttributedString.Key(rawValue: NSAttributedString.Key.paragraphStyle.rawValue)  : paragraphStyle]

            placeholderText.draw(in: placeholderRectForBounds(bounds: bounds), withAttributes: attributes)
        }
        super.draw(rect)
    }
}

在尝试了一些建议的方法后，我写了一个更清晰的实现，并将其发布到Github上。拉请求和问题是欢迎的。

与其他方法相比，这里提出了一些关键的改进:

不会在drawRect:中分配一个UILabel。(请不要这样做。) 不将文本视图的当前文本与所需的占位符进行比较以交换颜色。 当听写处于活动状态时隐藏占位符(如UITextField)。

这里有一个更简单的解决方案，它的行为完全像UITextField的占位符，但不需要绘制自定义视图，或辞职第一响应器。

- (void) textViewDidChange:(UITextView *)textView{

    if (textView.text.length == 0){
        textView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
        textView.text = placeholderText;
        [textView setSelectedRange:NSMakeRange(0, 0)];
        isPlaceholder = YES;

    } else if (isPlaceholder && ![textView.text isEqualToString:placeholderText]) {
        textView.text = [textView.text substringToIndex:1];
        textView.textColor = [UIColor blackColor];
        isPlaceholder = NO;
    }

}

(else if语句中的第二个检查是针对没有输入任何内容且用户按下退格键的情况)

只需要将你的类设置为UITextViewDelegate。在viewDidLoad中，你应该这样初始化

- (void) viewDidLoad{
    // initialize placeholder text
    placeholderText = @"some placeholder";
    isPlaceholder = YES;
    self.someTextView.text = placeholderText;
    self.someTextView.textColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor];
    [self.someTextView setSelectedRange:NSMakeRange(0, 0)];

    // assign UITextViewDelegate
    self.someTextView.delegate = self;
}