Bixby is Samsung’s virtual assistant, which the company obtained by acquiring the team that created Apple’s Siri. Unlike Siri, this is a “context-aware” solution and knows what is on the screen. It responds to questions and then has the ability to follow through with follow up questions.
Samsung feels that voice is a great way to Interact and control your device, but a more natural method is a combination of touch and voice, which is ideal for smartphones and tablets. You can also use the software’s image recognition capabilities and, for instance, let it tell you how much a particular product will cost online and let you purchase it. Bixby is different as it has the ability to work directly with developer third party apps and does not just come pre-programmed; like what Google and Apples offerings do.
“If what Samsung demoed works well in practice, Bixby will be interesting because it offers features absent from Siri and Google Assistant,” commented Francisco Jeronimo from IDC.
The good news for us is that Bixby is part of Samsung’s IoT strategy and will therefore find its way into not only Tizen smartphones, but also other smart devices like TVs and wearable tech. At launch this will not be a finished product and will continue to grow and mature but ultimately we hope it will be a great service. Checkout the video below to see some of it’s capabilities on the Samsung Galaxy S8:-
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmmMA2X-ZMs
