Galaxy S8 and S8+ users will receive an update

Sep 18, 2017 09:11 GMT  ·  By

Samsung has finally listened to the community and people can now choose to disable the Bixby button on their devices.

The latest generation of Samsung Galaxy, the S8 line, comes with a dedicated button for Bixby, the personal assistant. It’s not really clear why Samsung chose to build a new assistant or if they have long-term plans for it, but it’s there, and it can’t be disabled; until now that is.

Having the assistant open with the help of a button makes sure that people don’t have to say “Ok Google,” and it’s not depended on a software button. On the other hand, it’s hard to press a software button by mistake, and the same goes for saying “Ok Google” by mistake. This resulted in a lot of Bixby activations.

We also have to keep in mind that not many people will choose to use a personal assistant. In fact, they probably outnumber the people that do use it. Since there was no way to disable the button, the situation quickly became annoying.

Disable or remap

One of the easiest ways to go around the problem was to remap the button for some other action which is more innocuous. It stands to reason to think that not everyone is inclined to remap button on their Samsung Galaxy S8, so the next best thing is to disable it. Until now that was not possible.

It’s important to keep in mind that the Bixby and Bixby Home apps need to be updated from the official store, but it’s not yet available in all the regions. Some users have reported receiving the upgrade, while others are still waiting.

Unfortunately, this also means that Samsung Galaxy S8 users will now have a dead button on their devices, which is just weird for a high-end phone. There are a couple of solutions to remap the button, such as Bixby Button Remapper or Custom Bixby Button (S8 / S8+) if you want to give them a try.