It’s impossible to talk about Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S8 flagship device without mentioning the South Korea tech giant’s advanced AI voice assistant, Bixby, that will come with it. Though Apple’s biggest rival already had an intelligent personal assistant, called S Voice, for a number of premium devices it launched in the past, the company decided to develop a more advanced voice assistant that would be a direct competitor to Apple’s Siri and Google’s Google Assistant. The move isn’t surprising at all, for Samsung bought AI and assistant system firm Viv late last year.
Viv is a company by people responsible for the creation and success of Apple’s Siri. Hence, many reports are putting emphasis on the idea that Bixby will be a strong rival against Apple’s famous voice assistant. Interestingly, it was found out recently that the new AI will be nowhere near the prowess of the established assistant in terms of the languages they support. According to ETNews, Samsung’s assistant will support seven to eight languages at launch. The range does not come close to the 20 supported languages of Siri.
Even though Bixby is no match to Siri in the language department, it is till going to impress several markets at launch because it supports more languages than Google’s Google Assistant, which was introduced along with the Pixel handsets. Google Assistant only supports five languages, namely: English, German, Brazilian, Portuguese and Hindi. As for Bixby, it is reportedly supporting all five languages plus Korean and Chinese the moment it is introduced at Samsung’s big event, as per Phone Arena.
Bixby will have an integral role in the success of the Galaxy S8 on the market. The new AI assistant is seen as one of the selling points of the device, alongside the major redesign and new features that Samsung is stuffing into the phone. Making the most out of its virtual assistant, Samsung intends to incorporate the voice-activated feature to the S8 interface, individual apps and the Internet of Things to make it ubiquitous.
Meanwhile, Forbes pointed out the big differences consumers should expect from the Galaxy S8 when compared with its predecessor. The first and perhaps the most conspicuous difference is found on the design of the device. Independent leaks have since claimed that Samsung Galaxy S8 will sport an edge-to-edge display. The next difference lies on the processing power of the handsets. The new phone will house Qualcomm’s most powerful processor to date, the Snapdragon 835. Finally, the larger battery is without a doubt another aspect that distinguishes the S8 from the S7.
Are you excited for Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and its Bixby voice assistant? Sound off in the comments below.