Samsung recently announced its latest flagship smartphone — Galaxy S8, and we are just few days away from the launch as it will be available from April 21. But, the Korean giant has today delivered a disappointing update saying it will be shipping the Galaxy S8 without its most highlighted feature — the voice part of its Bixby AI assistant.
While Bixby AI assistant will be available with some features like Vision, Home and Reminder, the company said in a statement that Bixby Voice will launch in the US “later this spring.” It said:
With its intelligent interface and contextual awareness, Bixby will make your phone more helpful by assisting in completing tasks, telling you what you’re looking at, learning your routine and remembering what you need to do. Key features of Bixby, including Vision, Home and Reminder, will be available with the global launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 on April 21. Bixby Voice will be available in the U.S. on the Galaxy S8 later this spring.
The Bixby digital assistant, which was announced by Samsung last month along with its newest flagship smartphones, is Samsung’s answer to Siri and Google Assistant. However it is a bit different than Apple or Google’s software. One of the biggest differentiating factors between Samsung’s assistant and Siri or Google Assistant is Bixby’s ability to perform more manual tasks on your behalf, like lightly editing a photo or composing and sending an email.
It is really surprising that Samsung won’t be including Bixby’s voice assistant initially as it was positioned as one of the most important additions to the Galaxy S8 line during the unveiling, along with its Infinity display.
While initially it won’t be available in the US, there’s no telling when Bixby Voice will become available in other markets either.
Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones — Galaxy S8 and S8+ are currently available for pre-order across all four major carriers in the US, along with BestBuy. They are expected to arrive by April 21st — the date when the devices will be hitting physical brick and mortar stores.
As of the specs, the S8 and S8 Plus are largely similar on the hardware and software front — except for the screen size. Both come with an Infinity display, giving you a massive 95% screen to body ratio. Both feature industry first 10nm processors, with support for Giagbit LTE. The front camera is an 8MP unit, while the rear one is a 12MP dual pixel snapper. Both the camera’s also feature power saving capabilities.
