Samsung's Shixby: Reviewers unimpressed with S8 digital assistant It's not entirely clear why Samsung hyped up its new digital assistant earlier this year. Its answer to Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa and Google's, um, Google Assistant was to be called Bixby. And it would, according to Samsung Mobile CTO and Bixby architect Injong Rhee, be an "interface revolution." Well …
Most of the S- apps they stick on their phones can be best described as mediocre and at worst unremovable crapware. Just a duplication of the functionality you can for better in the Google apps, or didn't need or want in the first place.
I assume some bigwig in Samsung thinks their phones aren't sticky enough and therefore they need to build a platform of services to lock customers in so they can't choose to buy another brand phone without losing all their contacts, appointments and other info.
Now they have an assistant to add to that list, with a dedicated button. I wonder if you can reprogram the button to do something useful instead. Otherwise it's going to be a button that's pushed more by accident than intent.
Someone came up with a way to reprogram that button on review phones, which was very quickly patched.
A real shame, it could do something useful. I've never used these voice assistants regularly, but I don't get whats wrong with the google one - I've tried it out and it seemed alright once.
It seems to be a race to see who can turn up with the most ridiculous sounding name though.
You can't do software. So please stop.
You can't do software in two ways:
1) I have NEVER heard of anybody buying Samsung for the S-software
2) You are useless at pushing out updates - which you then blame on #1 which we didn't want.
You do however make lovely lovely hardware. Shiny futuristic (if occasionally firey), but seriously you're ahead. You're winning here.
I thought you were understanding me the consumer, as "TouchWiz" (I mean just the name alone, was quietly being dialled back and back)
I bought a stupidly priced Pixel for more than your last offering, solely as I get a nice UI and a monthly patch bundle (OK and a teensy bit better camera).
However I'm still stupefied by you spending money on software that actively puts me off your hardware.
How's about launching a "Google edition" of your phone? You sell the hardware and we just get a choice of whether we want your "creations" or something stock and functional.
There was a Google Play Edition of the S4, sold only in the US.
Presumably some kind of deal with Google helped Samsung management change their minds, but when the deal finished they went back to their default belief that throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks works.
...for literally years, it worked pretty damn well on everything from my Lumia 920 through the 1020 and now a 950, doubly so with data available without roaming costs in Spain and other places I need the feature.
Moreover, the app I use places the translated text hovering over the original, at the same size, whatever the angle etc., with a freeze feature to allow actual study/reading - most impressive though perhaps they all do that? Do they all allow downloading of languages to do it all offline?
No good at all though in an Eritrean restaurant I went to recently, in the UK I might add.
What does an S8 cost £700?, they can go screw themselves if they think I would pay that for a (I assume) nice curved screen.
I guess I am not the target market, oh well.
Quick poll: Do people in business meetings now get asked to turn off their phones, or has it not yet penetrated mainstream consciousness that these devices are constantly streaming audio back to a server somewhere in the US, where it is subject to the attentions of a TLA that is constitutionally required to further the interests of that country.
I use voice, A LOT. It's just useful for getting into options that require some thought to get into. Like "call joe bloggs", "set an alarm for 1630", "create an appointment for tomorrow at 10am". Then I also use it for looking stuff up, especially when talking about current affairs, TV, or anything current. Like "Alexa when was xxx film made" or "who invented the skip?".
I would buy an android phone to use google assistant, not to use something called bixby which quite obviously isn't going to be as good as siri, google or alexa. Everyone on this forum is right: samsung don't do software. They're like Microsoft, possibly even worse.
Just because Digby has a button doesn't make it worth using, I'm afraid. My next android phone will be a pixel.
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