The main issue here is that the tint color of the UINavigationBar instance inside UISplitViewController instance gets back to default grey color every time user changes devices interface orientation. For example when user turns the iPad to portrait mode and show the popover. Solution for that issue is to simply subclass UINavigationBar and overwrite tintColor setter. Now change nav bar class to custom one. BTW, this is iOS bug.
@interface CustomNavigationBar : UINavigationBar
@end
@implementation CustomNavigationBar
- (void)setTintColor:(UIColor *)tintColor
{
[super setTintColor:[self tintColor]];
}
@end