CocoaPods will generate two 'Acknowledgements' files for each target specified in your Podfile which contain the License details for each Pod used in that target (assuming details have been specified in the Pod spec).

There is a markdown file, for general consumption, as well as a property list file that can be added to a settings bundle for an iOS application.

You don't need to do anything for this to happen, it should just work.

If you're not happy with the default boilerplate text generated for the title, header and footnotes in the files, it's possible to customise these by overriding the methods that generate the text in your Podfile like this:

class ::Pod::Generator::Acknowledgements
  def header_text
    "My custom header text"
  end
end

You can even go one step further and customise the text on a per target basis by checking against the target name, like this:

class ::Pod::Generator::Acknowledgements
  def header_text
    if @target_definition.label.end_with?("MyTargetName")
      "Custom header text for MyTargetName"
    else
      "Custom header text for other targets"
    end
  end
end

Finally, here's a list of the methods that are available to override:

If you are using the generated plist in your settings bundle you might want to update the file every time that you update your pods. This can be accomplished by adding to your Podfile the following post_install hook.

post_install do | installer |
  require 'fileutils'
  FileUtils.cp_r('Pods/Target Support Files/Pods/Pods-Acknowledgements.plist', 'Resources/Settings.bundle/Acknowledgements.plist', :remove_destination => true)
end

To access this from your Setting Bundle's Root.plist replace your Root.plist with this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>StringsTable</key>
	<string>Root</string>
	<key>PreferenceSpecifiers</key>
	<array>
		<dict>
			<key>Type</key>
			<string>PSChildPaneSpecifier</string>
			<key>Title</key>
			<string>Acknowledgements</string>
			<key>File</key>
			<string>Acknowledgements</string>
		</dict>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

From Martin Hicks's blog http://martinhicks.net/2012/04/how-to-create-license-section-in-ios-settings-app/