Samsung releases Bixby Voice preview for the Galaxy S8/S8+

Samsung announced the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ back in April at its Unpacked event in New York. Aside from some revolutionary and amazing hardware, a new software user interface, and some other neat tricks and perks, the Korean technology company took a long time to share with its attendees a new virtual assistant, exclusive to the new line of smartphones: Bixby.

One problem, however: While Bixby was announced, and the phones were subsequently released for pre-order, it wasn’t until yesterday that the voice assistant was available on devices—in preview form, to be clear. The search and visual part have been on the 2017 Galaxies since the beginning, but for some reason, the handiest feature of Bixby wasn’t ready for initial launch. And for the few features that were available out of the box, a quick poll shows that hardly anyone uses Bixby.

And why would they? The Galaxy S8, running Android 7.0 out of the box comes equipped with a very fast and capable Google Assistant. An assistant that already works, that synchronizes seamlessly with the slew of Google services, and even has some third-party support. Samsung tends to try to either go head-to-head with Google or copy it by producing very similar, unexciting software to stand out from the bunch.

Well, Bixby is (sort of) here, and here to stay, whether you like it or not. We will have to see if the number of users rises, or if the app falls flat like I, and many others, originally expected. In the meantime, here’s a tutorial on how to use Bixby Voice.

Featured-image: Droid Life