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Samsung Blocks Ability To Remap Galaxy S8's Bixby Button (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the where-there's-a-will-there's-a-way dept.

A Samsung representative confirmed today via Twitter that the company has blocked the ability for users to remap the Bixby hardware button on the Galaxy S8. For soon-to-be Galaxy S8 owners, the news will come as a disappointment, especially since the Bixby voice assistant in English has been delayed and will not be fully functional when units starting shipping later this week. ZDNet reports: XDA Developers first reported a Galaxy S8 firmware update blocked the ability to remap the button to perform a variety of tasks. Before, the button could even be remapped to launch Google Assistant. It's not clear if Samsung will ever support remapping the button. A representative for Samsung tweeted: "Can't say it will never happen, but we won't officially support."

20 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. where's the PC of Mobile Computing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These things are computers; where is the PC of mobile computing?

    We need the freedom to program these things as we, the users, see fit. When will we finally have our freedom again?

    1. Re:where's the PC of Mobile Computing? by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When will we finally have our freedom again?

      When there's sufficient demand.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  2. No reason.. by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No reason to ever buy a Galaxy S8, then.

    Fuck that shit.

    --
    You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    1. Re:No reason.. by ITRambo · · Score: 3

      You get my non-existent mod point. People need to stay away from things that allow them to do what they want to do with it. How many people would actually bother to make the change? Why is Samsung scared of the possibility? It's annoying.

    2. Re:No reason.. by markdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >"Why is Samsung scared of the possibility? It's annoying."

      Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is almost irresistible for companies to gain the power to force their agenda on people and then NOT use that power. The only thing that keeps it in check is severe customer backlash (which rarely happens) and hacking (which the companies try to fight endlessly). Samsung is probably no worse than any other typical company. Google is certainly not immune to it- they have all kinds of artificial limitations in Android that favor their own agendas, too. Crap, even their web search page is full of it ("Oh, I see you are not using us as your default search engine." "Oh, I see you are not using Chrome..." dismiss it as much as you like, it will come right back next time or perhaps next week). As does Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, etc, etc.

    3. Re:No reason.. by Tough+Love · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fuck that shit.

      Seconded. But this blunder is easy to undo, and Samsung has a history of responding correctly to criticism. In their own interest obviously, but just a little less arrogant than a couple of Silicon Valley operations I could mention. An example: correctly chose not to follow (courageously!) in Apple's footsteps re the stereo jack. Another example: the sdcard slot stayed. Well, we never got the removable battery back, but I understand why... just so long as it stays repairable as opposed to glued in so insanely that replacing the battery amounts to refurbishing. I will predict that, with widespread condemnation of this stupid, arrogant infringement of the right to use the thing you bought, Samsung will back down and do the right thing.

      Should they wisely see the light and do the right thing, I would say that on the whole Samsung will gain trust compared to this incident never having happened. On the other hand, if they stick to their guns on this, that that's enough to flip me. In that case, fuck that shit, there are lots of good Android phones out there, and I will pick one that does not wave an attractive feature in my face then take it away.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:No reason.. by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Why is Samsung scared of the possibility?

      One of the highlights of the computing world in the turn of the century was the emergence of the single experience. Apple showed that you can make stupid amounts of money by creating a single standardized and very tightly controlled experience without providing users any customisation options at all. The idea is you pick up any iPhone you can use it, you pick up any Mac you can use it.

      Microsoft and mobile phone vendors have been falling over themselves to replicate this model for many years, locking down the ability to customise, move around, or change the UI for the most part almost down to even locking down colour schemes. We see this in OSes, mobile phones, hardware, distribution platforms, software, web interfaces, etc.

      If I boycotted anything that wasn't following this trend I would only be buying RMS approved hardware running RMS approved software.

  3. Re: I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem was they could reprogram it but the devs BLOCKED it just to be asses.

  4. Re:Flash another ROM by Xenx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering most people purchase their phones from a locked carrier, kinda hard.

  5. Screw the Corporate Overlords! by jediborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is why i won't buy a locked-down smartphone running Android anymore. These are designed to obey their creators, not their masters, which should rightfully be the users.

    The quickening pace at which we are losing control over our own devices that we presumably own is frightening

    1. Re:Screw the Corporate Overlords! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      The quickening pace at which we are losing control over our own devices that we presumably own is frightening

      To you.

      To me, too.

      But not to most, which is why consumers continue to buy the devices no matter how much c ontrol over them they lose.

  6. Re:Flash another ROM by toadlife · · Score: 2, Informative

    Samsung locks their bootloaders. In three years of ownership, I was never able to flash a custom ROM on my Galaxy S4, as no one was ever able to crack the bootloader. I just checked on the xda forums. Still not cracked to this day.

    So, to answer your question, it's very hard.

    --
    I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
  7. Re:I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Is there some sort of rule that vendor hostility becomes more acceptable as devices become smaller?

    If the vendor specifically has to break the ability to remap a button; this fairly strongly implies that it was otherwise possible; and the only reason it is impossible now is because they don't want it to happen.

    People tend not to feel the same way about fixed-function buttons in weaker devices because the limitations are more architectural than deliberate(and, if only thanks to a couple of decades of convergent evolution, there is often a reasonably sane quasi-default layout).

  8. Re:Flash another ROM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not sure where you checked on the XDA forums, but it obviously wasn't the dedicated sections for the Galaxy S4 which is filled with custom roms, for several different variants of the S4:

    https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4

    My wife's S4 has run Cyanogenmod for years, and now runs LinageOS.

  9. Re:HULK REALLY MAD! by colinrichardday · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps that's why they disabled the Bixby button.

  10. Re:I can't believe I'm defending Samsung... by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do you [complain] that you can't reprogram the Play and Stop buttons on your DVD Player?

    Why, yes I do. Next question.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  11. Re: Perhaps an S7? by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

    In modern horror movies, the zombies moan 'flagship' where they used to moan 'brains.'

  12. Re: Flash another ROM by Miamicanes · · Score: 3, Informative

    It might be a Verizon S4... VZW takes bootloader-locking 'evil' to creative new heights (lows?).

    Apparently, when the Note 4 came out, Verizon actually paid extra to Samsung for them to protect the Sprint version's bootloader the same way (Sprint itself was indifferent) just to make sure there wouldn't be another CDMA model with easy-to-unlock bootloader. From what I recall, the Verizon model of one of Samsung's earlier phones could be cracked by flashing a Sprint bootloader to the Verizon phone... it temporarily bricked the phone (or at least disabled the radio modem), but then you could unlock the easy-to-unlock Sprint-version bootloader & reflash it with a second bootloader that was basically a Sprint Android bootloader w/ripped Verizon radio modem firmware to give you a working, bootloader-unlocked Verizon phone. Verizon was determined to keep it from happening again.

  13. Re: Nope. Bought a Nexus years ago; disappointed. by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The difference is, "desktop" Windows has historically given us compatibility with drivers written for older versions (sometimes, as old as NT4) -- imaging drivers being the one notable exception due to TWAIN's brain-dead pre-WDM architecture).

    In contrast, Linux only abstracts its ABI for *applications*, not the kernel itself. For example, suppose I have a 4.10.10 kernel compiled for AMD64 using gcc, and a loadable kernel module built for that kernel. Now, suppose I have an identical computer running a 4.10.10 AMD64 kernel compiled with Visual Studio (just to give another widely-used compiler as an example). In most cases, the .ko file built for the "gcc" kernel will die a horrible death on the "Visual Studio" kernel... or possibly, even another 4.10.10 kernel compiled with gcc using slightly different options.

    Basically, Linux doesn't even *try* to maintain driver binary compatibility, even within THE SAME KERNEL VERSION, while Windows bends over backwards to maintain driver compatibility more or less "forever". AFAIK, it's an ideological decision... Linux's developers *want* to punish users of binary drivers & inflict the maximum possible pain, totally ignoring the reality that end users (or at least, users of cell phones capable of doing LTE on American mobile phone networks) have ZERO influence on Qualcomm or Nvidia's licensing policies... ironically, empowering VENDORS over end users in the process.

    Riddle me this: why could Linux use binary wifi drivers built for fsck'ng WINDOWS (via NDISwrapper), but can't even maintain binary compatibility between two sequential kernel releases with only minor differences? It's insane. I don't even blame Linus... I blame Google. Google has some of the best Linux kernel experts on planet earth. They could EASILY add an abstraction layer that preserved binary .ko compatibility across at least a few releases (think: a stable, open-source thunking layer that Android-certified drivers were required to use instead of directly referencing kernel structures... new release of Android? Just compile a new thunking layer for old binary drivers to use instead.)

  14. Re:HULK REALLY MAD! by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

    Do they have approval from the Bixby family to use that designation?

    Also the Hulk reference to the Bixby button is closer than you may first guess, Bill Bixby was one actor in the TV series The Incredible Hulk.

    Push the Bixby button - get Lou Ferrigno to show up in green.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.