Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have a new digital assistant, Bixby. However, the new feature is not exactly similar to Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa, and Google Voice Search. Rather, it is an application that comes in three faces: Bixby Voice, Bixby Vision, and Bixby Home.
According to Samsung, they will work on Bixby until Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus arrives on the market on April 21. But, the new digital assistant may not come preloaded on both devices; it will probably arrive with the software update. Although Bixby has a slow progress, Samsung assures that it will be a handy app later on with the support of third-party partners and new Bixby skills.
As of now, these are the three faces of Bixby:
Bixby Voice
Bixby Voice is similar to the voice command of Google and Siri, it starts with the wake word or by pressing the dedicated button. The thing is, Bixby Voice can only control the phone settings, like launching the camera, adjusting the brightness of the screen, and toggling Wi-Fi. Therefore, it cannot perform complex commands.
Bixby Vision
Bixby Vision uses the camera to recognize words or objects. It can distinguish text to select and share the objects to research or purchase. Bixby Vision can also read QR codes and translates text using Google Translate. According to Samsung, it can recognize landmarks even from a picture. If it's quite familiar, that's because it is similar to Google Goggles and Bing Vision for Lumia phones.
Bixby Home
Bixby Home will launch by swiping to the left of the home screen. Just like Google Now, Bixby Home can also serve cards with news headlines, weather update, step counts, and YouTube video. However, it must be linked to third-party applications such as Twitter or Facebook. It can also be customized, and it is supposed to be predictive.