With new redesign, Samsung is sending a lot of mixed signals to Bixby

Last updated: October 27th, 2020 at ten:00 UTC+01:00

Over the past few weeks, Bixby'due south time to come equally part of Samsung's mobile app portfolio hardly underwent any radical changes, notwithstanding information technology besides seems slightly less on a nearly daily ground. Considering Samsung itself appears to be running out of ideas almost what to do with its AI assistant, to the signal it already shuttered some of its original functionalities, while also supporting them in other markets, or doing highly specific, about random refreshes of some UI elements.

This latest development isn't doing anything to help stabilize Bixby's shaky position in Samsung's Android plans, either. But with that said, the Voice Assistant service, that genuinely quality part of an otherwise polarizing package, is at present getting a makeover that'southward kind of minor, yet could also imply a more than widespread UI refresh, every bit first spotted by 1 Reddit user. There's a flashy new icon here every bit office of a revised bottom navigation bar, as well, but merely based on the bodily office of Bixby being updated, it'due south probably safe to assume that of all its services, the Voice Assistant one would probably be the last 1 to become canned fifty-fifty if Samsung pulled the plug on everything this very second.

To Bixby or not to Bixby?

Ultimately, Bixby'due south number one issue hasn't changed much over the years – it'south even so a poorly balanced experience that can simultaneously achieve almost unrivaled feats of Android voice navigation and follow some quite remarkably complex exact commands while declining at being even the almost rudimentary of AI assistants. You would call back that some extra push toward tertiary-party support, whether via even more capsules, a genuinely useful, applet-like ability, or more straight integrations, might be beneficial to such an interoperability-dependent solution. Merely Samsung recently too disbanded its Bixby dev outreach unit, which never grew beyond a handful of employees and contractors, anyway.

So, especially with Bixby's AI shortcomings in mind, Google's growing desire to get its ain, industry-leading Assistant more tightly integrated into the earth'south best-selling Android phones – those from Samsung – might exist cause for alarm. Granted, it probably isn't, not beyond the likelihood Google just pays for some extra visibility, and fifty-fifty that'southward questionable. Simply Google Assistant has already been expanding across almost of what remains of Samsung'due south device ecosystem beyond smartphones, so nosotros really wouldn't bet on Bixby maintaining any popularity over the next few years, outside of all the same being a super user-friendly merely non that widely used voice control solution.

This latest pocket-sized pattern touchup, though? Non exactly consequential, let alone explained on Samsung's function, though the company will likely issue a short changelog stating this is actually a One UI 3.0 think, just distributed on an app- or service- level because who knows? Information technology seems like anybody working on Bixby is just kind of chilling and doing its own matter.