Samsung Galaxy S III tip: disable S Voice for better home button response

By Jerry Hildenbrand
last updated

The Samsung Galaxy S III may not be available in its biggest market just yet, but the rest of the world is enjoying, and finding helpful tidbits like this one that makes the home button respond better. You can set the home button to start up S Voice when double-pressed, but that means the system has to wait and make sure what you want it to do if you only press it once -- resulting in a pause. We've seen the same behavior any time an OEM decides to add functionality to a button with a double-tap, but this time its easy to fix. Just disable it in the S Voice settings and you're home free.

This, and more in the Galaxy S III forums

Jerry Hildenbrand
Jerry Hildenbrand
Senior Editor — Google Ecosystem

Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.

15 Comments
  • Hey here's an idea... why don't they do it like everyone else and make voice come up when you hold down the search key! Why mess with perfection?
  • Search key?? There's not search key/button on SGS3.
  • Because that's all the OEMs want to do (mess with perfection). Android Central seems to love it, but it's pretty clear that all of the OEMs only care about how much they can change stock Android to differentiate themselves, and they ALL fail at it. Brandon
  • Because that's how apple does it. I kid I kid
  • lol but i think apple you press the home button..am guessing samsung just wants to keep it consistant within its own phones..the s and s2 also had double press home button to use voice,at least we can turn it off which i guess many will do and only turn it on when an apple fanboy says can your phone do this and then you say yes and i can do more lol
  • That is how I have set up on my nexus press search key for voice.
  • You have checked "hide offensive words"? How are you going to know when someone talks about "censorship" then?
  • Thanks Planet Earth.. Maybe one day this fall the U.S. will get a version of the S3 and we can return the favor by figuring something out for you ! -)
  • 6 months from now we might have to deal with the same problem.
  • The title of this article is misleading...You aren't disabling S Voice...you are simply disabling a shortcut to launch it.
  • I am hoping there is a way to change it like the "search" key on some phones like my original Evo where long pressing (double tap in this case) pulls up Google Voice Search/Command which has been indispensable to me being accessed at any time and not having to use a screen shortcut. Anyone know if this is possible on the SG3?
  • Wow so glad I found this tip. Really makes a difference in how long it takes to get back to the home screen. I always thought there was something weird with the phone - like did I really press the home button or what? Now it isn't wonky anymore.
  • Thanks Jerry. I just got my phone yesterday and the poor button response was driving me crazy. This really helped with the problem.
  • Thanks for this tip, Jerry. That was driving me nuts.
  • I turned it off but want to setup an icon to activate it when I want it. How do I do this?