While the latest big-name voice agent is officially only a few days old, Samsung Bixby already gained enough traction to place it in serious discussions regarding the best digital personal assistants. After all, this is Samsung we are talking about and the South Korean tech giant doesn’t take things lightly. Samsung Bixby is, for all we know so far, different. Different good, if you ask us, as we’ve seen pretty much everything so far with most of the competition in the field being a bland, unimaginative copy of others. Allow us to explain.
Samsung Bixby vs Siri
With what we know already about the newcomer, Samsung Bixby plays a different game than the rest of the playing field. More so because we are so used to having our digital agents set one way that we kinda forget they can move about in different ways. Whereas the likes of Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa focus on gathering information and then using it to address your questions and commands, Bixby maneuvers in an opposite direction. Since it’s presently featured solely on Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus models, it focuses on using those device with ease. In this case, “with ease” means less touch and more talk. Owners of older Galaxy phones will need to wait for an upgrade in order to gain Bixby.
While the “voice for touch” approach is commendable, it’s really nothing new at this point. The major appeal of voice assistants is to enforce hands-free usage as much as possible. However, with Bixby, Samsung is refining the process to effectively mimic touch commands, using voice as a primary way of interacting. Starting with the usual wake method by saying “Bixby,” the voice commands go far in operation. That is the main draw of the assistant and the area where it throws serious shade at Siri. Let’s have a more detailed look.
Where Bixby is better than Siri
Bixby currently has features that a lot of its rivals don’t, not just Siri. Samsung put a lot of effort into Bixby’s integration with the S8 model to make it stand apart. While it’s nowhere near the final product, there are already features that look pretty sweet. In that regard, Bixby’s control of the camera plays the key part. The voice agent leverages the Vision mode that turns the smartphone into an augmented reality (AR) device. With the help of the now AR camera, a user is able to identify objects in real time and then search for them on various services.
Samsung’s AI assistant is able to recognize the objects in your scene and make recommendations accordingly. At the initial demo presentation, Bixby recognized the famous Flatiron building in New York and immediately provided suggestions for places to eat and things to do nearby. This comes off as a rather handy feature for tourists who don’t travel around with an iPhone in their pockets because Siri lacks such option. But, the camera utilization doesn’t stop there. The real power of Bixby is its contextual understanding, best reflected in the e-commerce space. While this is not an original concept (Amazon’s Fire Phone had this feature implemented long ago), it’s the quality of implementation that counts.
Samsung Bixby Vision is capable of the following:
- Product search
- Identification of places and landmarks
- Text translation
- Finding similar images
- QR code and barcode reading
The general idea is to just point the smartphone at whatever you are interested in and wait for a tick or two (depending on the quality of your internet connection). In terms of shopping, Bixby can find that item for sale through one of the partners Samsung is working with. The biggest of those (and biggest in general) is Amazon. The partnership with the world’s largest online retailer will make searching for and shopping items a breeze. Furthermore, it’s also very important for another reason which directly ties into another major area Bixby dominates Siri – the Internet of Things.
The battle for IoT domination
While this particular instance perhaps more revolves around Samsung and Apple rather than their respective digital assistants, it’s too important to overlook. Namely, Bixby is perfectly positioned in the center of the Samsung’s hardware ecosystem. From there, it can act as a link between a smartphone and any other smart device, Samsung-made and otherwise. As the South Korean company is one of the biggest consumer electronics brands in the world, the opportunity is there. The means are there, especially considering Samsung already has a solid portfolio of its own smart devices. Apple is far behind in this race due to it not being a hardware company. An app can only do so much. Better yet, to rephrase- being iPhone-centric will only get you so far. This is most likely why Siri will have a tough time catching up with Samsung Bixby in this regard.
Lack of Bixby Skills
Yet, for all the talk about deep app integration and wide connectivity through IoT devices, it’s somewhat surprising that Samsung launched an incomplete product. Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are among the company’s top of the line smartphones and it makes sense to enhance them with Bixby. Everybody knows Samsung needs S8 to perform well after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. Hence, it’s perfectly understandable why they rushed Bixby but it is a risky move nonetheless. Sure enough, you can easily pinpoint all the shortcomings Bixby has after only a few days of “life”. Still, one thing that immediately catches the eye is the app integration. During the hype-building phase, Bixby was touted as an AI assistant that would have deep integration with apps. Currently, that is somewhat missing with only a handful of apps supported..
Let’s back up for a minute to the “talk instead of touch” concept. So far, Bixby works with the following Samsung apps: phone, messaging, settings, camera, reminder, contacts, and gallery. When using those apps, you can just ask Bixby to open them for you and find what you want, instead of trying to find it yourself. During the demo presentation, Bixby was able to rotate a photo, play a video and even send it to a television screen. Some things, like typing in the email address yourself, might require touch until Samsung sorts these kinks out. Nevertheless, third-party integration currently includes a few fan-favorites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Uber, among others. The sooner Samsung adds support for third-party partners, the better.
One final thought before we wrap things up. What is really important to stress out is that the voice commands functionality for English-speaking users is still not available so much of the way Bixby operates is by touch. US users will have Bixby Voice available later this spring, while the UK and other English-speaking countries will have to wait a little longer (there is no specified date at the moment).
Conclusion
When all is said and done, Samsung Bixby is not a unique offering among the plethora of AI assistants we have today. Instead, it’s a refreshing take on a highly competitive market that certainly could use a breath of fresh air. The focus is on device performance rather than personal experience. When it comes to comparing it to Siri, it is somewhat difficult to pull off, if only because of the proverbial age difference. Even so, things aren’t completely in Siri’s favor as we have just seen. Far from it.
Bixby’s main advantage at the moment is the use of contextual and visual search. This makes search process much easier compared to other voice assistants, not just Siri. Augmented reality enhanced shopping, coupled with Amazon partnership will be a significant draw for user who enjoy shopping online. Also, when integrated into third-party apps, Bixby will be able to perform almost every action in an Android app using just voice commands. Let’s not forget Samsung has the upper hand when it comes to consumer electronics, allowing for a broad IoT network.
On paper, this all sounds impressive but we’ll have to wait for Samsung to sort things out. This includes making Bixby fully functional with the voice recognition, longer lists of partners and third-party app developers. What we have now is an unfinished product, one that didn’t impress many due to high expectations. Samsung made a brave move by releasing Bixby the way it is now considering the Note 7 crisis. It’s a good start nonetheless but still not ready for showtime.