Ever since the Galaxy S8 came out, Samsung has been trying to push Bixby onto owners. Given how Bixby isn't any more useful than Google Feed or Google Assistant, how the English voice assistant still isn't out, and how the button is unable to be disabled, many have turned to remapping apps. Samsung already attempted to block these apps once, but clever developers found a way around that pretty quickly. Now, starting with yesterday's T-Mobile update, Samsung has blocked Bixby remapping apps yet again.
We received an email from Jawomo, the developer of bxActions, telling us that his users with T-Mobile Galaxy S8s have been reporting that the recent June security update broke the remap functionality. As a T-Mobile Galaxy S8+ owner who uses the BixBye app and just updated, I realized that I had been seeing a lot more of the Bixby setup screen than usual, but hadn't connected it to the fact that Samsung had yet again blocked remapping apps from doing their jobs. I installed Bixby Button Remapper and Custom Bixby Button just to make sure that all of these remapping apps had been blocked, and sure enough, they don't work anymore. Samsung has implemented a workaround for the devs' workaround.
Currently, only T-Mobile models are affected, with other variants with June security updates still able to use these apps. Jawomo doesn't plan to give up this fight and is already looking for another workaround, so we'll have to stay tuned.
Zeroooo0 on July 10th, 2017 at 00:50 UTC »
No joke I have no idea why I should use Bixby over Google Now.
tantouz on July 9th, 2017 at 23:59 UTC »
They are so fast at pushing updates when it suits their agenda.
maluman on July 9th, 2017 at 20:56 UTC »
My issue with this is there really isn't a conversation here. Samsung doesn't want you to use the button for anything else, Users do. Until Samsung stops putting out updates that target how the app "remaps" the bixby button, were endlessly going to go around that loop: I'll figure out a way, Samsung will block that way, we'll figure out another way, Samsung will block that way. They seem pretty intent on this. The other issue that needs to be addressed is using accessibility permission to remap bixby is the worst case, because that will slow down your phone and make it laggy. Thus we go back to the loop.