Samsung kills remapping of hardware Bixby button on the Galaxy S8 with new OTA update

Samsung's digital personal assistant, Bixby, has been one of the highlight features of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. While it won't be available in the US on launch, the firm is serious about the feature, going so far as to designate a hardware button on its latest handsets. While there was a glimmer of hope last week that showed that the button could be remapped to launching an app of your choice, Samsung has officially crushed that dream in its latest update.

@geoff5093 @Lostatsea1923 @One3OneKing @droid_life It was exploiting a system-level behavior. That behavior has been changed. Can't say it will never happen, but we won't officially support.
— Philip Berne (@philipberne) April 17, 2017

According to the folks at XDA Developers, a new over-the-air update arriving on the devices will apparently disable the ability for the Bixby button to be remapped. Samsung has implemented this change due to it "exploiting a system-level behavior." Perhaps the silver lining in the tweet above from Samsung's Philip Berne is that maybe sometime in the future, this could change. But, for now, Samsung won't be officially supporting the remapping of the hardware button.

It might be a deal breaker for those who were hoping for a bit of flexibility on the use of the button, but it certainly won't stop Samsung from selling millions of devices. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ will arrive to the US starting on April 21 and in Europe on April 28.

Source: XDA Developers | Image via Samsung