Bixby button remapping is once again available for the Galaxy S8

In what is becoming quite an entertaining dance to watch, Samsung’s latest update for Sprint and T-Mobile Galaxy S8 smartphones, which blocked several apps that remapped the dedicated “Bixby” button, has been circumvented. XDA-Developers contributor Jawomo (XDA-Developers profile here) bxActions app has been updated to work on affected devices once again.

Here’s a bit of backstory: one of the new features of the Galaxy S8 is the inclusion of the Korean giant’s own digital assistant, Bixby. Created to compete with products like Google Assistant and Siri, Bixby can be activated on the Galaxy S8 via a dedicated hardware button. However, after many Android users stated their dislike for what they saw as yet another piece of superfluous software and a desire to remap the hardware button to other phone functions, Samsung pushed a pre-release update that prevented the button from being customized.

That didn’t stop dedicated Android developers. Soon after the phone’s retail release, apps started popping up that would kill Bixby and launch another phone app or function once the dedicated button was pressed. Again, Samsung was not happy about this and recently pushed out an update that blocks this functionality to T-Mobile and Sprint Galaxy S8 devices.

Jawomo, an XDA-Developer member whose bxActions app was among the most popular remapping tools, has recently pushed out an update that should make the app usable once again on affected devices. Note that we do not have a Galaxy S8 on these carriers to test the app, but initial reviews are stating success. Bixby may need to be disabled and re-enabled for the fix to take effect. More details can be found on the app page in the Google Play Store.

Check, Samsung.

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