Samsung launched its modern-day flagships, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ to a whole lot of fanfare. The hype was nicely deserved, considering that Samsung had went all-in on minimal bezels, and a excellent facet to side show. Among other new matters, one of the features that became met with extensive skepticism turned into the committed Bixby button on the side of the cellphone. Customers all over the international felt like this turned into yet another Google characteristic that Samsung had unnecessarily replicated, after which provided a dedicated hardware button for. Plus, with Bixby being crippled at release, thanks to voice support not being available, it’s best natural that you could need to stay with the use of Google Now. So, if you need to apply Google Now in preference to Bixby, right here is a way to remap the Galaxy S8’s Bixby button to Google Now:
[ad type=”banner”]Remapping the Bixby Button
1.A Brief History of Remapping the Bixby Button
Naturally, there were many developments with regards to remapping the Bixby button. In part due to the fact no one become in reality excited about Bixby, and partly because nicely, it’s a hardware button that may be used for doubtlessly anything you want to quick get admission to your smartphone. developers were brief to parent out a manner to remap the Bixby button to almost something you need your device to do.
However, Samsung pulled an Apple, and quickly pushed a software update that broke the workaround developers had been using to remap the Bixby button to other actions.
2.Remap Bixby Button to Google Now
Since the software program update made the “key up” and “key down” activities get swallowed with the aid of the OS before achieving Accessibility offerings, it broke the solution builders had provide you with for remapping the Bixby button.Opportunely, Android developer “Dave Bennett” put together an app that will release Google Now every time the Bixby button is pressed. Here is how to use it:
- Install the BixRemap app (free) from the Play Store and launch it. The app needs Usage Data Access, and will automatically take you to the Settings page. Just allow Usage Data Access to BixRemap.
- In the main screen, tap on “Start Service”. If you need to use Bixby for some reason, just tap on the “Stop Service” button.
That’s it, you can now try pressing the Bixby button on your Galaxy S8 or S8+, and Google Now will launch instead of Bixby.
The app works by searching for Bixby in the foreground, and launching Google Now over it. Due to this, you may see the Bixby screen for less than a second before it gets replaced by Google Now instead.
Disable the BixRemap Notification
The best disadvantage to the usage of this app is that it places a persistent notification to your display screen. Whilst the developer has plans to dispose of the notification from displaying up in a future replace to the app, you can use the subsequent approach to stop the notification as nicely:
- Go to Settings -> Notifications.
- Here, turn off the toggle next to “BixRemap”.
This will block the notification from BixRemap from showing up in the Notification Shade, until the developer comes out with a more elegant solution.
Feature Updates in BixRemap
One of the many accurate matters about the BixRemap app is that the developer is very energetic on the Reddit thread devoted to this app, and is replying to function requests and improvement suggestions as properly. Some of the capabilities that may be brought to the BixRemap app in future updates encompass things like:
- Launch on boot option, so the app remains persistent after a reboot, essentially making the remapping “permanent”, unless explicitly disabled by the user.
- Ability to choose a custom appfor the Bixby Button. This will definitely be a great update to the BixRemap app, and will definitely be an amazing feature.
- An option to increase polling time in an attempt to reduce the delay between pressing the button and launching Google Now.
Remap Bixby Button to Google Now with BixRemap
With the Bix Remap app, you could easily remap the Bixby Button in your Galaxy S8 and S8+ to launch Google Now in preference to Bixby. While the previous method that intercepted the “key up”, “key down” events to assign precise functionality to the Bixby Button has been disabled with the software program update that Samsung pushed to all S8 and S8+ devices, this new app will really keep running. Plus, with the superb function updates that the developer already has planned, there’s absolute confidence that the app might well grow to be one of the ought to have apps in your Galaxy S8 or S8+ tool.