14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung advertised the new Bixby virtual assistant even before the Galaxy S8 and S8+ were announced in late March. However, when the two devices were released, one key Bixby feature wasn’t available.
Now, Samsung has started rolling out Bixby’s voice command feature to Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ users in Korea, while the US and other countries should follow very soon, according to a report. The feature is the main highlight of Bixby, as it allows users to perform various actions without having to tap on any buttons or options.
By using only their voice, Galaxy S8 and S8+ users in Korea are now given the option to control almost any part of a compatible app. Samsung highlighted this by showing users how they can edit pictures using Bixby Voice in the gallery app.
Bixby Voice should arrive in the US this spring
The Korean smartphone maker says that users can control at least 10 applications using Bixby Voice, including the Gallery, Calculator, Weather, Reminder, Message, Settings, Camera, Contacts, and more.
Users also have the option to enable Bixby Labs and use Voice to conduct payments with Samsung Pay or navigate in Samsung Health. Some third-party apps like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and WhatsApp have support for Bixby Voice on Galaxy S8 and S8+ units.
But Bixby is great not just for its Voice functionality, as it comes with three other features, including Bixby Home and Reminders, which were available at launch, and it also features tools for gathering contextual and pertinent information whenever users need it.
Bixby Vision automatically detects what the user is looking at and provides related information. It was designed for shopping, searching for images, translating foreign text or reading QR codes and barcodes.
Bixby’s full functionality is expected to roll out in more countries this spring, which means that it will arrive in the US by the end of this month. Fortunately, Samsung did previously say that Bixby would be made available on other devices as well, but it’s unclear when that will happen.