Objective-C: Status Bar Alpha - objective-c

Question

I am creating a custom alert view and I am setting the background of this view to a mostly alpha black, to cause the background view to appear slightly faded. This works except for with the status bar (it stays the exact same).
With the current Apple AlertView framework, when the alert view is shown, the entire background fades slightly. How can I replicate this functionality?
EDIT
None of the answers are solving this for me. Here is what I'm doing doing to open the AlertView:
[self.navigationController.view.superview addSubview:self.alertViewController.view];
Then from the custom alert view controller in viewDidLoad():
self.view.backgroundColor = COLOR_BLACK_ALPHA;

Answer 1

You can't change the alpha of the status bar, you can only set its appearance.
UIAlertView is an Apple component and as such uses private API's to do things that you can't.
What I suggest is that before showing your view, take a snapshot of the screen beneath it using something like this (source : Capture iPhone screen with status bar included
UIView *screenshotView = [[UIScreen mainScreen] snapshotViewAfterScreenUpdates:NO];
than remove the status bar, and place the image, blur the image (can be done using a blur view, or just as an effect on the image, then show your view.
If you have any questions please ask.

Answer 2

How about this?
UIWindow *customWindow = [[UIWindow alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
customWindow.windowLevel = UIWindowLevelStatusBar+1;
customWindow.hidden = NO;
customWindow.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0.0 alpha:0.7];
[customWindow makeKeyAndVisible];
Now inside customWindow you can add whatever you want...

Answer 3

You can do this by adding a custom overlay in Window before you add your custom alert view like this:
UIWindow *aMainWindow = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] keyWindow];
self.grayOverlayView = [[MyCustomAlertViewOverlay alloc] initWithFrame:aMainWindow.bounds];
self.grayOverlayView.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:0.0 alpha:0.5];
[aMainWindow addSubview:self.grayOverlayView];
[aMainWindow addSubview:self.customAlertView];
And this is how your overlay would look like:
#implementation MyCustomAlertViewOverlay
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)iRect {
CGContextRef aContext = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
CGContextSaveGState(aContext);
CGColorRef aGradientStartColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.0 green:0.0 blue:0.0 alpha:0].CGColor;
CGColorRef aGradientEndColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:0.0 green:0.0 blue:0.0 alpha:0.6].CGColor;
NSArray *aColors = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:(__bridge id)aGradientStartColor, (__bridge id)aGradientEndColor, nil];
CGFloat rLocations[2] = {0.0 , 0.5};
CGColorSpaceRef rColorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
CGGradientRef rGradient = CGGradientCreateWithColors(rColorSpace, (CFArrayRef) aColors, rLocations);
CGColorSpaceRelease(rColorSpace);
CGPoint aCenter = CGPointMake(iRect.origin.x + iRect.size.width / 2, iRect.origin.y + iRect.size.height / 2);
CGContextDrawRadialGradient(aContext, rGradient, aCenter, 0, aCenter, iRect.size.height, kCGGlyphMax);
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(aContext, 0, 0, 0, 0.0);
CGGradientRelease(rGradient);
CGContextFillRect(aContext, iRect);
CGContextRestoreGState(aContext);
}