Am wondering if anyone had been able to remove or hide the text labels for icons on the apps listing screen?

It's not an os that needs such labels imo. Given the Swype UI, losing the text labels seems like it would have been an option in there. Geek adding icon-initiated gestures also seems like a direction that could have been taken (for example, press and hold icon then swipe down to uninstall, press and swipe up to send to another's device the deb or link to download the app).

Just wondering