The Bixby button spent the first six months of its life without any singular function. Once Bixby arrived for the phones the button finally had a function, albeit only being Bixby.
What followed was a game of cat and mouse between developers and Samsung over that Bixby button with developers attempting to make the Bixby button useful by allowing it to be remapped to other useful functions.
Samsung have now changed their minds it seems with reports that the Galaxy S10 Bixby button will be able to be officially remapped to ANY other function. The Verge is reporting that there are settings on the Galaxy S10 that allow the user to remap the Bixby button to open any third-party app — the functionality will be for either a single and a double press of the Bixby button.
After setting the app press function for one of the button presses the other one will default to Bixby. Unfortunately it seems you cannot change both the single and long press function at the same time – it is one or the other.
One function that cannot be remapped is the press and hold function — it will still open Bixby voice and cannot be changed.
After this was first reported by the Verge on Samsung Unpacked day on Wednesday 9to5Google have had confirmation from Samsung that an update is coming to older Galaxy phones including the Galaxy Note 9, Note 8, Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S8.
Great news for Samsung owners and although you cannot remap both button pressing functionalities at the same time. At least though Samsung seem to be listening to the cacophony of complaints over the Bixby button and allowing us to change some of its functionality. Baby steps.
Woot, about time!
I use an app called “bxActions” It can remap the bixby button on my S9 to open any app or start system event and can have different actions for long, short and hold presses.