Though the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ has yet to reach the hands of the vast majority of users, some users have gotten their models a few days early. As is typical with new smartphone releases, there are often minor OTA updates available to fix some bugs that weren't caught in the Q&A process. However, it seems that this time an OTA update is being used to rework how a certain feature on the device works – the Bixby Button. Apparently, this update is removing the ability to remap the Bixby Button. We knew this was possible, but we didn't expect Samsung to actually go ahead and do it.
To recap, we learned that it was possible to remap the Bixby button to perform pretty much whatever action you wanted back on April 4th. This was made possible due to the fact that, when pressing the Bixby button (or any other hardware button for that matter), the system generates a key up and key down event which can be intercepted by Accessibility Services. Hence why the All in one Gestures application requires you to enable its Accessibility Service in my tutorial.
As you might guess, all Samsung would have to do to remove the ability to remap Bixby is to prevent Accessibility Services from intercepting this key event. Which, apparently, is exactly what they are now doing, at least according to XDA Recognized Developer flar2 who is the developer of Button Mapper.
Flar2 was in the process of updating his Button Mapper application to support remapping the Bixby button soon after he received his Samsung Galaxy S8 from Telus in Canada. He was able to get the application working initially, but after he updated downloaded the latest system update from Samsung (build version NRD90M.G950WVLU1AQD9), he discovered that his application was no longer working. It turns out that Samsung has modified the system to consume the Bixby button's key events before it reaches the Accessibility Services, effectively making it impossible to remap the Bixby button as of now (at least without root access).
We are very disappointed in this development. We understand Samsung's motivations in wanting to make users use the Bixby button for its intended purpose, but the many tutorials available to remap the Bixby button are simply there for those users who wanted it. If Samsung didn't want the press to report on the fact that users are seeking the remap the Bixby button, perhaps they should work to get the feature fully working out of the box first.
Many thanks to flar2 for this scoop!
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