The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 launch is just a couple of weeks away and much of the talk is centring around the new stylus, which is rumoured to pack Bluetooth connectivity.
However, there’s not so much excitement around surrounding the launch of Bixby 2.0, the revamped version of Samsung’s voice and image-powered personal assistant. Now, a new report has affirmed the impression Samsung will launch the improved version of Bixby with the Note 9 at the Unpacked event on August 9.
Korean publication The Bell says the updated tool will now have better support for third-party apps. The report (via SamMobile) says the functionality will stretch beyond the ability to launch third-party apps, enabling users to work within the apps too.
Related: What is Bixby
It says Samsung is introducing an API and SDK for the assistant, which will allow developers to build Bixby functionality in their own apps. This would go someway towards catching up to the likes of Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The latter has had a huge amount of success with its third-party skills and is of stark contrast to Bixby.
The company has been promising an upgrade to the assistant since it arrived to little fanfare on the Galaxy S8 in April 2017. Bixby was criticised for the incomplete nature of the product, plus the delayed launch of English language support.
One source quoted in The Bell report says: “The first time we launched Bixby and it was criticized for the service, we started to rebuild from scratch. It took a year and a half to launch the Bixby 2.0. We have focused on preparing for scalability.”
Now we await the second coming and hope, for Samsung’s sake it’ll be more fruitful this time around. Today’s report ties into rumours Samsung plans to release a Bixby-powered smart speaker during the Unpacked event.
Are you intrigued to see whether it’s second time lucky for the Bixby assistant? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.