As far as I can tell, this is the best and most correct way to create a custom UITableViewCell that has a backing Objective-C class (so custom subviews) and is layed out using a Nib. If anyone knows of a better way to do it, let me know. There’s a bunch of conflicting information on the web.

1. Create your Nib
2. Remove the default UIView from XIB, replace it with a UITableViewCell
3. Update: Remember to set a reuse identifier in the NIB properties. It cannot be set programmatically.
4. Create your UITableViewCell subclass in Objective-C
5. Set the class of the cell in IB to be your custom class
6. Manually write your UIOutlet properties for the custom view properties you want to access from the cell.
7. Add sub-views in IB that correspond to those outlets
8. Select the cell and open the right menu, right tab (Connections inspector). There you should see the custom outlets you just coded up in the Outlets list
9. Select the handle to the right of each outlet and drag it over to the subview in IB that corresponds to that outlet
10. Finally, in your tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: method, instantiate the cell

The cell needs to be instantiated using the Nib to display your custom layout:

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...
NSString *ident = @"customCell";
CustomTableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:ident];

if(!cell)
{
  NSArray *tlobjs = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"CustomTableViewCell" owner:nil options:nil];
  cell = (CustomTableViewCell*)[tlobjs objectAtIndex:0];
}
...