Microsoft is adding a new key to PC keyboards for the first time since 1994

jordanlund@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 502 points –
Microsoft is adding a new key to PC keyboards for the first time since 1994
arstechnica.com

Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards, though not yet.

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You mean the Bixby button? (/s, but I think you can see my comparison of uselessness there)

Yeah, I'm glad the Bixby button was dropped. What a joke. I don't need an assistant to use my phone, thanks.

I’m surprised people didn’t instantly remap the Bixby button to something else.

On my S10 I had it long press to activate flashlight, and double press to silence my phone. It was really handy.

Wasn’t that impossible for awhile?

Maybe, but I’m trying to remember which model. My S8 and onward I always remapped my Bixby button via 3rd party app (no root) so maybe it was the S7 that wasn’t remappable?

edit: The S8 was the first phone with the dedicated Bixby button, according to Google, so maybe it wasn’t remappable initially. I got it a year+ into it’s life cycle and I never activated Bixby

Tried to look it up: https://mashable.com/article/samsung-will-let-you-customize-bixby-button

That article claims the option came out when the s10 was out. I seem to remember being able to mod it on my phone as well S9. Can't test it though because while I've had this phone for 5 years now I may have not babied it enough. The physical bixby button has fallen into the phone itself so I can hear ot rattle around. If I were speculating, I would assume it either A. became available to all 3 phones during that same software update, or we remember it sooner being part of something like putting the phone into developer mode so we could have further modifications

Thanks for the link! Yeah, I definitely used a 3rd party app/software to be able to remap the S8 button. I think it was called something literally like “Bixby Remapper”. I thought I used the same app for my S10 but I might have just remapped it natively.

As an aside, my S8 is still alive and kicking after all these years, while my S10 had button problems like yours + OneUI became a buggy mess on it after a year. The build quality just doesn’t feel the same.

The button itself wasn't bad Have such an extra button on my Sony too and it's very nice (I have it set to take screenshots).

The problem is when they don't let you map it to whatever you want.