How to disable the Bixby key on your Galaxy S8

If you are the owner of a Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8 Plus or Galaxy Note 8, chances are you are frustrated by the physical button on the side that calls up Bixby. Bixby was supposed to be a major voice assistant that could rival the Google Assistant and Siri. However, thanks in part to a delay in rollout by Samsung, the feature never took off. Most people disliked it. What users disliked even more was the inclusion of a button to call up Bixby.

Users called for an option to wire the button to a different function. While earlier versions of Samsung Galaxy S8 pair gave the user the freedom to use the button for another function. Samsung quickly retracted the feature. This was probably because the company wanted to push the voice assistant to the masses.

Injong Rhee, Executive VP and Head of R&D, Software and Services at Samsung, told the following.

"We got a lot of anger, a lot of emails from many, many people [saying]: "Wouldn’t it be nice if I could map it to camera?","

"But what I’m saying is that this is such a sticky area. I mean, people don’t see it right now but once they start seeing the behaviour behind Bixby I don’t think they’ll want to map it to anything else."

But now that the feature is not popular, Samsung has made it possible to remove the functionality.

To switch it off, open up Bixby. You will then see a toggle at the top of the app. You"ll then be greeted by a pop-up that asks whether you want to turn the feature off forever. Once you reach this stage tap the option that reads "Don"t open anything".



If this feature is not available, you will have to visit the the Galaxy App store on your phone to push the update through.