Samsung debuted Bixby with the Galaxy S8 in 2017 before finally releasing it to the public with support for English in over 200 countries with the launch of the Galaxy Note 8 later in the year. However, Bixby met with mixed response and the lack of updates from Samsung since then has essentially led Bixby to fade into oblivion.
However, it looks like Samsung is all set to revive Bixby once again with the Galaxy Note 9 later this year. As per reliable leaker Ice Universe, Samsung will be launching Bixby 2.0 with the Galaxy Note 9 which is significantly different from the current version of the virtual assistant. He says that Bixby 2.0 is a cumulation of the original Bixby and Viv, an AI platform created by the original founders of Siri.
Perhaps Bixby 2.0 is more worth looking forward to than Note9, it has changed so much, out of the Bixby 1.0 framework.
— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) July 27, 2018
The leaker does not provide any information as to what new features Bixby 2.0 will offer. Nonetheless, given his words that Bixby 2.0 “has changed so much,” it does look like Samsung will have a major surprise up its sleeve when it unveils the Galaxy Note 9 on August 9 at its Unpacked event.
Bixby on the Galaxy S8 and Note 8 was doomed to fail right from the get-go. Samsung took months to add support for English and other popular languages to its voice assistant and even then, it failed to recognize one’s accent. The highlight of Bixby was how well it worked in controlling device settings but that alone was not going to be enough to make users stick.
What do you think about Bixby? Are you willing to give it another chance with the Galaxy Note 9? Or do you just want Samsung to offer an option to turn off its voice assistant completely on the device?