Open Radar

 
See https://devforums.apple.com/message/536109

I actually didn't know until today one could pass "nil" to this method.

"If you specify nil for the nibName parameter, you must either override the loadView method 
and create your views there or you must provide a nib file in your bundle whose name 
(without the .nib extension) matches the name of your view controller class. (In this 
latter case, the class name becomes the name stored in the nibName property.) If you do 
none of these, the view controller will be unable to load its view."

Long story short, I discovered my XIB wasn't loaded although the doc says it should. I decided to make a small demo project here: 

https://github.com/stuffmc/NilNib

where I basically load with nil a UIViewController having 2 buttons loading a UITableViewController.
 
One with nil, you can see it doesn't have the TableView in "Group" and doesn't have the footer button. One passing @"T" (the class name which should derive from the initWithNibName) which works.