Samsung’s Bixby remap block is bypassed yet again

Recently, Samsung pushed an update to the Sprint as well as T-Mobile versions of its software, which blocked the current key remapping applications on the Play Store from changing the default action of the Bixby button present on the Galaxy S8.

With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8, we got to try out Samsung’s newest attempt at trying to become what Google does best—a provider of all possible services that you would want to use.

The presence of an extra hardware button is a boon to many. It can be used to launch any application that you want. In fact, Sony devices have had a button to launch the camera or any other application of your choice for a while now. Naturally, many wanted the ability to change the button on the S8 to launch Google Assistant or even Google Now.

The bottom line is, choice is always a good thing to have. While we argue about whether Bixby’s forced adoption is good or not, one thing is plainly obvious to me: Bixby is just a forced beta test on S8 users, who have paid good money to have complete control over their phone.

Let me elucidate a bit. For starters, it’s stuttery as hell. Swiping right from home to Bixby has dropped more frames than trying to use Snapchat on an old phone. You know the pain more than I do. Also, when Bixby displays the news, each category is its own card and you can only choose categories that are extremely broad. When you try to add more detailed categories, it tells you to download Flipboard, which is just another advertisement. If I had to use Flipboard for that, what is the point of Bixby?

Bixby Vision is powered by Pinterest. Honestly, Samsung didn’t even try on that one. A user on Reddit shared his frustrations about this as well.

We have seen it all already, and we can already see the pattern forming. A deluge of complaints came in when Samsung forced the adoption of its S-voice application, even overriding the way Google Now worked, forcing many Samsung users into a state of limbo, which can still be seen in a lot of devices in the wild, dating up to the S7!

Honestly, there are not a lot of users who would actually remap a button. Most would simply just not use it. However, this game is just a new version of whack-a-mole. Samsung isn’t slow at updates now, when it comes to restricting user freedom. In all honestly, Samsung should include a remapper in the settings itself, it isn’t really that big of a challenge. You just need to accept that Bixby is not something that everyone wants.

Anyhow, you can grab the new app using the badge or in the source link below.

Source: bxActions – Bixby Button Remapper (Play Store)

Featured-image: Digital Trends