Belated Bixby: Virtual assistant not ready for Galaxy S8 launch
Phones
The Samsung Galaxy S8 phone will be missing a major feature when it launches next week.
The voice activated Bixby virtual assistant will not be fully operational in the US and it is delayed until sometime later this spring.
Bixby is like Apple's Siri and Samsung made a big fuss about it.
Bixby is one of the biggest selling points of the new phone.
Samsung even put a physical button on the side of the S8 just for summoning Bixby.
Now that means there's now a button for something that isn't fully working, and that's not a good look for Samsung.
Although the company did warn us that Bixby may not be ready in time for launch, so this isn't a big surprise.
The English voice recognition software is what needs more time But what will work at launch, according to the company, is the Bixby home screen which learns your routines and reads your calendar to make suggestions.
You can also use it to set reminders.
And also working is Bixby Vision.
Point the camera at a sign in another language and it's gonna translate the text.
It can also recognize landmarks and recognize select objects to tell you where to buy those objects.
Launching without a fully working assistant may not be flattering for Samsung, but there is already skepticism over how much Bixby is really gonna make a difference to users, when the Android phone already has Google's assistant installed Essentially this is a phone with two assistants.
Samsung wants to set Bixby apart from other voice assistants by having it be a way you can control your phone with your voice such as telling it to find a certain photo and send that photo to somebody all with audio commands.
I'm Bridgette Kerry, and for more details on all the Galaxy S8 has to offer, and not offer yet, head to CNET.com
