Why don't you just have an empty title property for your view controller and add the title to your custom images for the tab?
You can do this (in iOS 5.0):
UIImage* iconSelected = [UIImage imageNamed:@"tabIconSelected.png"];
UIImage* iconNotSelected = [UIImage imageNamed:@"tabIconNotSelected.png"];
UITabBarItem *updatesListItem = [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"" image:iconSelected tag:0];
[updatesListItem setFinishedSelectedImage:iconSelected withFinishedUnselectedImage:iconNotSelected];
[navigationController setTabBarItem:updatesListItem];
where tabIconSelected.png
and tabIconNotSelected.png
both contain the title text for the tab.
I have written a brief article "Add some colour to your UITabBar icons" which explains how to use custom images with tabs.
Hope this helps.