If you  would like to avoid to set the background image of the main view controller through Interface Builder, you can use a different way and delete the UIImageview object from Interface Builder:

- (void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated 
{
  [super viewWillAppear:animated];
  self.view.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithPatternImage:[UIImage imageNamed:@"backgroundImage.jpg"]];
}

You may use viewDidLoad as well but viewWillAppear avoid some flickering. With Xcode 3.2.5 is not possible to use the pattern yet.