Samsung makes its virtual assistant Bixby a little less annoying for Note 9 users

Take a deep breath, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 users. Bixby is about to annoy you a little less.

Samsung is giving its Note 9 customers the ability to reduce accidental activations of Bixby. According to Android Authority, thanks to Samsung’s latest Note 9 update, it will now take a double-tap of the dedicated Bixby button to activate Bixby.

For those mobile customers who don’t know what a Bixby is, Bixby is Samsung’s virtual assistant. It’s Samsung’s very own version of Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Apple Siri. The difference is that whatever criticisms you may have about any of those other assistants, Bixby is somehow worse.

And while Bixby does get its fair share of critique over an AI that’s maybe not as good as its competitors, one really major issue that drives much of the Bixby hate -- even from users who like Bixby -- has to do with just how easy it is to accidentally trigger the virtual assistant.

In an effort to increase use of its Bixby assistant feature, Samsung actually built a physical button into its hardware to launch Bixby. A major design flaw seems to be the actual location of this physical button. With its placement right below the volume rocker, many Samsung Galaxy customers accidently hit that Bixby button.

Samsung had given the option to disable the button completely in earlier models of their smartphone lineups. However, there’s no option to disable the dreaded Bixby button on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. There’s also no way to remap the button to trigger another feature or alternative virtual assistant. On the Note 9, you are stuck with that Bixby button.

With Samsung’s latest update rolling out today, users can now go to their Note 9 settings, launch the Bixby settings and choose between a single or double tap of the Bixby button in order to launch Bixby. The double tap option should make it at least a bit harder to accidentally launch Bixby, which should in turn make Bixby a little less annoying.

And I think all smartphone users can universally share in the distress and utter annoyance caused by accidentally launching any one of the smartphone virtual assistants out there.