Johannesburg - When Samsung launched the S8 smartphone last year, users bashed the Bixby button for being inconveniently placed. A year later with the launch of its latest flagship, nothing has changed.
The Galaxy S9 was unveiled a month ago during Mobile World Congress and has since reached South Africa, but it seems the South Korean electronics manufacturer did not heed the call of irate users in the placement of the button to activate the artificial intelligence (AI) assist.
The design of the S9 is similar to the S8 and recently-launched Note8 which feature four buttons on the sides of the devices – power/wake-up on the right and; up/down volume and dedicated Bixby button on the left.
Users now face the same gripe that if the screen was in sleep mode, Bixby was accidentally activated when trying to wake up the device The Bixby button is adjacent to the power button, on a device that looks the same facing up or down.
Other users complain that Bixby is accidentally activated when pressing the volume buttons which are positioned above it.
In the S8, the Bixby button was initially unable to be deactivated, but shortly after user complaints, the company rolled out an update to disable the button.
How to deactivate the Bixby button:
The button can be disabled by pressing the Bixby button then accessing the settings menu by tapping the gear icon on the very top of the app.
Once the menu is accessed, the Bixby button can be toggled on and off.
To activate the button again, open the general settings from the home menu of the device and then searching for the Bixby Settings within the menu.
A toggle in the Bixby Settings will allow users to make use of the button again.
Samsung launched its assistant Bixby with its Galaxy S8 smartphones to help it break into a surging market for voice-activated virtual assistants, which include Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google's Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana.
The Bixby AI personal assistant was designed to assist in completing tasks, talk back to the users and understand texts and voice commands through machine-learning and has since been upgraded with camera features in the S9.
Kill the Bixby!!!! Tired of cutting the bixby button in all my protective cases! #nobixby
— ARCHLIFENOW (@archlifenow1) March 18, 2018
I keep mistakenly hitting the Bixby button on the side of my cell. It's like Microsoft brought back Clippy, and gave him a phone.
— Daniel Cohen (@DanGoesPing) March 17, 2018
#Bixby button is the most unused button in cell phone history...??????????????????
— Protocol Gaming (@protocolgaming4) March 15, 2018
What small thing about your phone do you hate? Bixby Button is driving me crazy.
— Nuka DiLucca (@Nuka_DiLucca) March 14, 2018
