Galaxy S8 will ship with Google Assistant pre-installed

Samsung has been using its virtual assistant Bixby as a strong marketing tool for its newly launched flagship smartphones Galaxy S8 and S8+. And on first impression, it does work. Yet, there may be many out there who would be wary to use a smartphone with an entirely new AI. Keeping this section in mind, Samsung has made a smart move to ship Galaxy S8 pre-installed with another AI, the much-preferred Google Assistant.

Well, a report from Samsung’s home country stated, citing industry sources, that ‘Galaxy S8 will likely have the Google Assistant program, which has similar features to Bixby’. Google Assistant has been around for some time now, and users response to it has been on the positive side. Thus, its inclusion on Galaxy S8, alongside Samsung’s own Bixby, will only augur well for the Korean giant.

Read: How to use Bixby on Samsung Galaxy S8

However, suggesting the reason behind this move by Samsung, the report quoted an industry watcher as saying that ‘if the Galaxy S8 comes with two voice assistants, users would be able to compare the two and opt for the one with the better performance.’

It’s not only flagship devices, but even budget smartphones might soon boast of the Bixby feature, as per the report, as Samsung plans to bring the AI assistant on budget smartphones as well. Therefore, ‘in the near future, the Bixby and Google Assistant will be found inside a single device and compete with each other.’

Read: Will Samsung release Bixby for Galaxy S6, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy Note 5?

Now, why doesn’t this come as a surprise to us? Well, because on hindsight, this isn’t exactly a novice step from Samsung. It has been using this tactic for long now. Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge came with both S Voice and Google Now pre-installed, giving users the option to use any of these two.

via Korean Herald

Posted by
Nuzhat N

Nuzhat is a day-dreamer with imaginations running sky-high. Her love for tech is a recent one which she is still unwrapping and trying to decipher. Once a news-savvy journalist, she is now a tech-savvy author. Email: [email protected]

30 Comments

  1. Google Assistant and Bixby, both. Best of both worlds or added confusion? What do you all think?

    1. Well they released it with Google assistant now simply because Bixby is not completely ready as of now

    2. No they were obligated to release assistant. Assistant is a part of android at its core.

    3. I guess that could be right but then they would have to remove the Assistant once Bixby is properly so Obligation might not be the reason but simply that they needed a temporary substitute ?

    4. No, they’ll never remove assistant. Itll lead to a lot of bad faith. They can’t remove it either. It’s a part of Google play services and the Google app, both a very integral part of android os. They’ll have to get Google to turn it off for them which they won’t. They’ll just focus on making Bixby more functional and hope users will flock towards that.

    5. Seeing how they’re forcing users to use the bixby button for it and nothing else They might do all they can to get users to choose Bixby .Maybe they’ll simply provide an option to choose between AA and Bixby with AA turned off by default.

    6. I’d be happy if that happens, my friend. 🙂
      The situation now seems very half baked and confusing. They should let us choose. 🙂

    7. Yeah .Everyone’s confused about Samsung’s release cus we all were expecting Bixby to come in with it

    8. True. You can launch Google Assistant by the home button. Regarding Bixby, even if it may turn as useful as they say, there was no reason for an extra button, don’t you agree? Providing a button that will act as a dummy for some time, has led people all over the world to look to remap it, even before they get their hands on one.

    9. Yes agreed. Investing the technology for a while button and allocating the precious hardware space inside the phone for the button again tells us how serious Samsung is about Bixby. But with all their seriousness, they give us a half baked version of Bixby with voice support “coming soon”? That seems like a real fall back for Samsung. But who knows what problems they ran into while making this phone possible. Needless to say, a phone as revolutionary as this one will have had a fair share of obstacles while being designed and produced so as tech aware people who can appreciate these things, I guess we all understand and contemplate the whole Bixby button issue.

    10. Yes Indeed. Hopefully, Bixby has some “more” features that is taking up the extra time. In all instances, the Note 8 (or, whatever that si going to be called) will reflect all these transitions by Samsung, perfectly.

    11. Samsung itself was expected to have a the biometric scanner “under the touch screen” but then they did not get the results from all that research in time so they had to find a place to install the scanner which ended up near the camera in a slightly uncomfortable position but the users will easily get used to it after a week or so of using it 😀

    12. Button can be remapped again now after the temporary pause. I think that’s good

    13. They are at least giving users the choice.

    14. Thats great news! and its also released by a developer although its not like before when we could map it to do anything now its simple made to call android assistant

  2. Google Assistant and Bixby, both. Best of both worlds or added confusion? What do you all think?

    1. Well they released it with Google assistant now simply because Bixby is not completely ready as of now

      1. No they were obligated to release assistant. Assistant is a part of android at its core.

        1. I guess that could be right but then they would have to remove the Assistant once Bixby is properly so Obligation might not be the reason but simply that they needed a temporary substitute ?

          1. No, they’ll never remove assistant. Itll lead to a lot of bad faith. They can’t remove it either. It’s a part of Google play services and the Google app, both a very integral part of android os. They’ll have to get Google to turn it off for them which they won’t. They’ll just focus on making Bixby more functional and hope users will flock towards that.

          2. Seeing how they’re forcing users to use the bixby button for it and nothing else They might do all they can to get users to choose Bixby .Maybe they’ll simply provide an option to choose between AA and Bixby with AA turned off by default.

          3. I’d be happy if that happens, my friend. 🙂
            The situation now seems very half baked and confusing. They should let us choose. 🙂

          4. Yeah .Everyone’s confused about Samsung’s release cus we all were expecting Bixby to come in with it

          5. Button can be remapped again now after the temporary pause. I think that’s good

          6. They are at least giving users the choice.

          7. Thats great news! and its also released by a developer although its not like before when we could map it to do anything now its simple made to call android assistant

          8. True. You can launch Google Assistant by the home button. Regarding Bixby, even if it may turn as useful as they say, there was no reason for an extra button, don’t you agree? Providing a button that will act as a dummy for some time, has led people all over the world to look to remap it, even before they get their hands on one.

          9. Yes agreed. Investing the technology for a while button and allocating the precious hardware space inside the phone for the button again tells us how serious Samsung is about Bixby. But with all their seriousness, they give us a half baked version of Bixby with voice support “coming soon”? That seems like a real fall back for Samsung. But who knows what problems they ran into while making this phone possible. Needless to say, a phone as revolutionary as this one will have had a fair share of obstacles while being designed and produced so as tech aware people who can appreciate these things, I guess we all understand and contemplate the whole Bixby button issue.

          10. Yes Indeed. Hopefully, Bixby has some “more” features that is taking up the extra time. In all instances, the Note 8 (or, whatever that si going to be called) will reflect all these transitions by Samsung, perfectly.

          11. Samsung itself was expected to have a the biometric scanner “under the touch screen” but then they did not get the results from all that research in time so they had to find a place to install the scanner which ended up near the camera in a slightly uncomfortable position but the users will easily get used to it after a week or so of using it 😀

Comments are closed.