Samsung rolls out update to let Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 owners disable the Bixby button but still does not let the button be remapped to another purpose
to an extent Eric Chiu / International Business Times : Samsung Bixby App Opening? How To Disable Frustrating Galaxy Phone Window Alex Wagner / PhoneDog.com : Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 owners can now disable their Bixby button Steve Dent / Engadget : Galaxy S8 owners can finally disable the Bixby button Antonio Villas-Boas / Business Insider : Samsung is rolling out an update that will disable the infamous Bixby button on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 Evan Selleck / Android and Me : Bixby button on Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 can now be disabled Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : You can now sort of disable the annoying Bixby button on your Galaxy S8/Note 8 Jeff Causey / TalkAndroid.com : Samsung's Bixby button can be disabled in latest update Brian Heater / TechCrunch : You can now disable Samsung's devoted Bixby button Dreyer Smit / Neowin : Samsung allows users to disable the Bixby button with new update Tom Warren / The Verge : Samsung finally lets you disable the annoying Bixby button Andrew E. Freedman / Tom's Guide : You Can Finally Turn Off That Bixby Button: Here's How Stan Schroeder / Mashable : You can now disable Samsung's Bixby button Andrew Myrick / Phandroid : FINALLY!! Samsung is now letting users disable Bixby on your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8 [VIDEO] Andy Boxall / Digital Trends : Bixby Key can now be deactivated on the Galaxy S8, but still can't be reassigned Mark Wycislik-Wilson / BetaNews : How to disable the Bixby button on your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ Silviu Stahie / Softpedia News : Samsung Now Lets Users Disable the Bixby Button Tweets: Vlad Savov / @vladsavov : The irredeemable software villain of 2017: Samsung's Bixby. http://www.theverge.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung launched the Bixby voice assistant on the Galaxy S8 about a month after the phones themselves shipped, debuting it first in South Korea (Bixby's Korean rollout). By August, reviewers had settled on a verdict: strong at controlling Galaxy hardware and Samsung apps, weak on voice recognition and cloud sync (Ars Technica's mixed review) — leaving many owners with a dedicated button for an assistant they didn't want to use.
First-order effects
- Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 owners gain an off switch for the button, ending accidental Bixby launches, but the key remains hard-wired to Bixby — no third-party app or shortcut can take its place.
- Samsung concedes ground on the most complained-about hardware feature of its flagships while preserving the button as Bixby's exclusive entry point.
Second-order effects
- Keeping the key Bixby-only protects whatever engagement and usage data Samsung gets from the assistant, at the cost of continued owner friction that rival assistants cannot exploit through the button.
- App developers are locked out of a physical shortcut surface on Samsung's best-selling phones, since the disable option offers no reassignment path.
Third-order effects
- The half-measure proved unsustainable: by early 2019 Samsung allowed the Galaxy S10's button to open any third-party app (S10 remapping announcement) and then committed to extending remapping to all Galaxy phones on Android Pie — turning a fixed vendor key into a user-configurable one.
The trend: Dedicated AI-assistant hardware keys are shifting from fixed vendor defaults to user-remappable surfaces, with Samsung's disable-first-remap-later sequence marking the transition.