Jason的答案在iOS7中看起来有点不对劲，通过调整_placeHolderLabel的偏移量来修复它:

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect
{
    if( [[self placeholder] length] > 0 )
    {
        if (_placeHolderLabel == nil )
        {
            if ([[UIDevice currentDevice].systemVersion floatValue] >= 7)
                _placeHolderLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(4,8,self.bounds.size.width - 8,0)];
            else
                _placeHolderLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(8,8,self.bounds.size.width - 16,0)];
            _placeHolderLabel.lineBreakMode = NSLineBreakByWordWrapping;
            _placeHolderLabel.numberOfLines = 0;
            _placeHolderLabel.font = self.font;
            _placeHolderLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
            _placeHolderLabel.textColor = self.placeholderColor;
            _placeHolderLabel.alpha = 0;
            _placeHolderLabel.tag = 999;
            [self addSubview:_placeHolderLabel];
        }

        _placeHolderLabel.text = self.placeholder;
        [_placeHolderLabel sizeToFit];
        [self sendSubviewToBack:_placeHolderLabel];
    }

    if( [[self text] length] == 0 && [[self placeholder] length] > 0 )
    {
        [[self viewWithTag:999] setAlpha:1];
    }

    [super drawRect:rect];
}

在看完所有答案后，我意识到我需要一些简单的，同时可重用的东西，这样我就可以在我的项目中为所有uitextview添加相同的功能。最后我得到了以下代码:

extension UITextView {

// MARK: TextView PlaceHolderLabel Setup

func createPlaceHolderLabel(with text: String) {
    let lbl = UILabel()
    self.addSubview(lbl)

// Add your constraints here

    lbl.text = text
    lbl.textColor = .lightGray
}

// My Textview contains only one UILabel, and for my use case the below code works, tweak it according to your use case

// Lastly two methods to toggle between show and hide the placeholder label

func hidePlaceHolderLabel() {
    guard let lbl = self.subviews.first(where: { $0 is UILabel }) else { return }
    lbl.isHidden = true
}

func showPlaceHolderLabel() {
    guard let lbl = self.subviews.first(where: { $0 is UILabel }) else { return }
    lbl.isHidden = false
}

}

当UILabel作为子视图添加到UITextView时，textView游标位置和UILabel位置将不匹配，因此在占位符文本之前留下一个空间

class ViewController: UIViewController, UITextViewDelegate {
    var textView: UITextView!

override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()
    view.addSubview(textView)
    // Also setup textView constraints as per your need
    // Add placeholder to your textView
    // Leave one space before placeholder string
    textView.createPlaceHolderLabel(with: " Address")
    textView.delegate = self
}

然后在textViewdidChange方法中添加以下代码

func textViewDidChange(_ textView: UITextView) {
    if textView.text.isEmpty {
        textView.showPlaceHolderLabel()
    } else {
        textView.hidePlaceHolderLabel()
    }
}

它可以在所有uitextview中重用。

我能够做添加一个“占位符”到UITextView与很多少的代码。这就是我所做的:

UITextView *textView = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(60, 800, 200, 60)];
textView.text = @"Write characters here...";
textView.textColor=[UIColor grayColor];
textView.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"Hevlatica" size:15];
textView.delegate=self;

我猜这不是一个真正的占位符，因为你必须在写之前删除文本，但如果你想要一些更简单的东西，它可能会有帮助。

这是我的版本的UITextView与占位符支持。斯威夫特4.2 https://gist.github.com/hlung/c5dda3a0c2087e5ae6c1fce8822c4713

一个支持占位符文本的UITextView子类。它使用另一个 UILabel显示占位符，当文本为空时显示。

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)。

我通读了所有这些，但提出了一个非常简短的Swift 3解决方案，在我的所有测试中都有效。它可以更一般化一点，但过程很简单。这是整个东西，我称之为“TextViewWithPlaceholder”。

import UIKit

class TextViewWithPlaceholder: UITextView {

    public var placeholder: String?
    public var placeholderColor = UIColor.lightGray

    private var placeholderLabel: UILabel?

    // Set up notification listener when created from a XIB or storyboard.
    // You can also set up init() functions if you plan on creating
    // these programmatically.
    override func awakeFromNib() {
        super.awakeFromNib()

        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self,
                                           selector: #selector(TextViewWithPlaceholder.textDidChangeHandler(notification:)),
                                           name: .UITextViewTextDidChange,
                                           object: self)

        placeholderLabel = UILabel()
        placeholderLabel?.alpha = 0.85
        placeholderLabel?.textColor = placeholderColor
    }

    // By using layoutSubviews, you can size and position the placeholder
    // more accurately. I chose to hard-code the size of the placeholder
    // but you can combine this with other techniques shown in previous replies.
    override func layoutSubviews() {
        super.layoutSubviews()

        placeholderLabel?.textColor = placeholderColor
        placeholderLabel?.text = placeholder

        placeholderLabel?.frame = CGRect(x: 6, y: 4, width: self.bounds.size.width-16, height: 24)

        if text.isEmpty {
            addSubview(placeholderLabel!)
            bringSubview(toFront: placeholderLabel!)
        } else {
            placeholderLabel?.removeFromSuperview()
        }
    }

    // Whenever the text changes, just trigger a new layout pass.
    func textDidChangeHandler(notification: Notification) {
        layoutSubviews()
    }
}