iOS UI best practice - UILabel or UITextView?

Update: As I commented below, I agree this is not the best answer these days. It was more accurate back in 2013, but today you should use a text view for a large text field. I cannot delete this, as it's the accepted answer, but I agree (and voted for) Vishnu's answer below.

This depends a bit on what exactly you're trying to do.

If you need to display static text with no editing features and no selection features, you should use a UILabel and place it in a UIScrollView if necessary.

If you need selection or editing, use UITextView.


Sorry for the late reply, but this may help someone.

According to Apple's Text Programming Guide for iOS, UILabel defines a label, which displays a static text string. UITextField defines a text field, which displays a single line of editable text. UITextView defines a text view, which displays multiple lines of editable text. Although these classes actually can support the display of arbitrary amounts of text, labels and text fields are intended to be used for relatively small amounts of text, typically a single line. Text views, on the other hand, are meant to display large amounts of text.

For more information please check: Text Programming Guide for iOS