Has Samsung finally ditched Bixby on the S20 line?

[PsychDoc]

It's about as useful as a pile of dead mosquitoes. It would be nice to have that third button available for other uses. Or just lose it altogether.

 

[jessewaldo]

They got rid of the button in the note 10 series. The button can be used to activate it, but can be used as a power button.

 

[DUTCH VanAtlanta]

The app is still on the S20.

 

[PsychDoc]

The app is still on the S20.

Ughhhh. When will samsung ever learn?

 

[ThrottleJohnny]

Ughhhh. When will samsung ever learn?

They've invested tons of money into developing Bixby. They're not giving up on it until they've gotten some return on their investment.

I'm happy the button is gone.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

Personally I think Bixby is the best voice assistant I've used, far better than Googles trash assistant.

 

[bbgpsuser]

I use Bixby daily. The only other voice service I use is Alexa on my Fire TV.

 

[msm0511]

Bixby is good for Bixby Routines, handling phone specific things, and handling SmartThings stuff.

 

[jlangner]

Bixby routines are great, have at least 4 that I use daily.

 

[anon(10621852)]

It's about as useful as a pile of dead mosquitoes. It would be nice to have that third button available for other uses. Or just lose it altogether.

Couldn't possibly be any worse than Siri. I think just about anything is better than Siri

 

[buzzy3970]

Agreed

Couldn't possibly be any worse than Siri. I think just about anything is better than Siri

 

[Dooki]

Couldn't possibly be any worse than Siri. I think just about anything is better than Siri

It's not, never has been. To top it off bixby got lobotomized awhile back and doesn't do anything anymore. No matter what I am out tells me it does not have that function. Routines are the only thing that has gotten better.

 

[K Alan Bates]

My hang up on Bixby is the same hang up that keeps me from activating any of the "voice assistants." I refuse to sign myself up to have my spoken thoughts submitted to someone else's server for their own purposes -whatever they may be- as a necessity of the service. Bixby is the very first one that I have actually kept looking into even after discarding it specifically because it is the way that a true automated assistant should behave.

I want to build things that use Bixby. I want to integrate Bixby into "things." I demand that Bixby run on MY own hardware, obey only MY commands, and do NOTHING that I do not explicitly train it to do.

No I am not going to send Samsung my location data. No I am not willing to send Samsung my commuter schedule. No I am not willing to send Samsung information about my eating habits. No I am not willing to send Samsung information about media that I like. No I'm not willing to let Samsung search for an answer without me explicitly telling it has permission to each and every time. No I am not willing to let Samsung "get to know me better" so that Bixby is a proxy for SAMSUNG rather than an avatar for ME. Replace "Samsung" with any vendor at all and it all works the same way for any of these assistants.

Google Assistant has been optimized to the point that the entire natural language processing network can run directly on device.
If Samsung can get that to work with Bixby and...I dunno...create a PAID version of Bixby that allows you to complete opt-out of all of the "product improvement" and "targeted marketing" experience, then Bixby is the one that will win.

As they stand, they are all losers.

 

[Golurk]

They are all decent and good at specific things, but generally (in my experience):

Google Assistant > Bixby > Siri > Cortana

 

[J Dubbs]

My hang up on Bixby is the same hang up that keeps me from activating any of the "voice assistants." I refuse to sign myself up to have my spoken thoughts submitted to someone else's server for their own purposes -whatever they may be- as a necessity of the service. Bixby is the very first one that I have actually kept looking into even after discarding it specifically because it is the way that a true automated assistant should behave.

I want to build things that use Bixby. I want to integrate Bixby into "things." I demand that Bixby run on MY own hardware, obey only MY commands, and do NOTHING that I do not explicitly train it to do.

No I am not going to send Samsung my location data. No I am not willing to send Samsung my commuter schedule. No I am not willing to send Samsung information about my eating habits. No I am not willing to send Samsung information about media that I like. No I'm not willing to let Samsung search for an answer without me explicitly telling it has permission to each and every time. No I am not willing to let Samsung "get to know me better" so that Bixby is a proxy for SAMSUNG rather than an avatar for ME. Replace "Samsung" with any vendor at all and it all works the same way for any of these assistants.

Google Assistant has been optimized to the point that the entire natural language processing network can run directly on device.
If Samsung can get that to work with Bixby and...I dunno...create a PAID version of Bixby that allows you to complete opt-out of all of the "product improvement" and "targeted marketing" experience, then Bixby is the one that will win.

As they stand, they are all losers.

For the companies they're all winners, they're all getting rich selling/using our data, and all our information... even the things we say at home when our Amazon echoes/Google homes/Apple whatever's are listening, is being saved/recorded/shared/sold.

Definitely doesn't leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy does it? lol

 

[mesocyclone30]

I don't use Bixby. It won't work if i have the voice commands for the camera turned on and stuff. And the Bixby vision if that's what it's called, I don't remember, wouldn't recognize some common food items. It was worthless. I don't use Google Assistant much anymore because it malfunctions and has to be reset often. When i try to get it to call someone while I'm driving it always says "let me get more information on that" then tries to do a web search. So then i have to unlock my phone and do it manually while driving or wait till I stop somewhere. So annoying. automated stuff is worthless when you need it. I can't even use it, google assistant, at home because then my google speaker in the other room does the phone call then no one can hear me because i'm' not in the same room. whatever. I'm on the S9+ btw.

 

[donm527]

Bixby Vision is the best component in the whole Bixby system and when demoing the S20 glad to see it still there.

I do a lot of reading of stories or artcies in Japanese, Korean, Spanish on my Note 8, using the S-Pen to hover over text and it overlay the translation was magic and did a great job.

Bixby Vision at the time worked better than Google own translation or Lens app.

Now I don't use the pen as much and just take shots of the text using camera in Bixby Vision and translate but it still does it better than Google... Funny since it uses Google translate as it's engine.

The rest of Bixby was annoying and disabled it as soon as it was possible. The only other thing it was good for for enabling the long press and giving it simple phone commands like "Increase brightness to 50%"

Google Assistant for everything else.

 

[J Dubbs]

I don't use Bixby. It won't work if i have the voice commands for the camera turned on and stuff. And the Bixby vision if that's what it's called, I don't remember, wouldn't recognize some common food items. It was worthless. I don't use Google Assistant much anymore because it malfunctions and has to be reset often. When i try to get it to call someone while I'm driving it always says "let me get more information on that" then tries to do a web search. So then i have to unlock my phone and do it manually while driving or wait till I stop somewhere. So annoying. automated stuff is worthless when you need it. I can't even use it, google assistant, at home because then my google speaker in the other room does the phone call then no one can hear me because i'm' not in the same room. whatever.

I agree, recently I've noticed that the Google Assistant has went to crap, hardly works when you really need it anymore. It's a shame, because it used to be great and I used it constantly with my Bluetooth earpiece... almost never took my phone out of my pocket.

 

[ThrottleJohnny]

Bixby will come in incredibly handy with the camera features and switching display refresh rates.

 

[DanielLoreti]

They are all decent and good at specific things, but generally (in my experience):

Google Assistant > Bixby > Siri > Cortana

What's wrong with Cortana?