It's kinda funny - but something as simple as the iOS status bar can be confusing as quantum mechanics. Holly wrote a blog post, and an interactive web-based simulator, that explains the various settings and configurations for the status bar. It is definitely recommended reading: PhoneGap Developer's Guide to the iOS Status Bar.
P.S. Yes, this is a super short blog post, but I like to share important blog posts like this for the members of my audience lucky enough to avoid Twitter. Trust me - stay away...
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What the user too often sees in the iOS status bar, and more so elsewhere on the screen (like at the bottom), looks and works like "quantum mechanics". Programming it shouldn't be any less tricky - to be fair. Every UI guideline seems to be lawfully violated. Coding for it might just be the easy part.
(I keep my Twitter involvement to a minimum already thank you.)