Soon after the launch of Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones, it was found that the dedicated Bixby button on the devices could be reconfigured to launch other apps as well - including rival Android virtual assistant, Google Assistant. However, Samsung soon played spoilsport as the company blocked this remapping workaround by pushing out an update. Interestingly, now another way to remap the dedicated Bixby button has popped up on the Google Play store.
The Bixby Button Remapper app on Android, as the name suggests, allows users to remap the dedicated physical Bixby button to launch most of the services on the device. Notably, the app is able to remap the button to launch the camera app, flashlight, power menu, and even Google Now among others, but doesn't seem to be capable of launching Google Assistant as of now.
If you are wondering how this app is able to achieve this functionality, it is pretty basic in its approach unlike previous method that required system level changes. Bixby Button Remapper app kills off the Hello Bixby application instantly and instead launches the preferred function required by the user.
"Unlike some other Bixby Button Remapping apps, this one doesn't actually monitor keypresses. Rather, it detects when the Hello Bixby app is on screen and instantly kills it and triggers whatever action you set within the app instead," the application's description says on Google Play.
We tried it out, and the Bixby Button Remapper app seems to work in a snappy manner as of now and appears to offer a great level of customisation choices to users. As the South Korean company has announced that the support for voice-commands will be added later and Bixby assistant only supports two languages as of now, the option to launch Google Assistant is still likely to be missed by many users.
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