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Samsung’s botched Bixby rollout stopped me from buying the Galaxy S8

You can’t really go wrong with any of the major flagship releases in 2017. The HTC U11, LG G6, and Samsung Galaxy S8
all bring something different to the table, and none of them really
fall short in any key areas. Plus, at least for the U11 and S8, HTC and
Samsung have both included new and unique features in their handsets to
help them stand out from the crowd. The U11’s Edge Sense is super handy (and it’s only going to get better over time), and the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, if I’m being totally honest, are two of the most beautiful smartphones ever made.
Okay, so beauty is subjective, but it’s hard denying that Samsung
put a lot of effort into making these smartphones look and feel
futuristic. From the Infinity Display on the front, to the smooth
aluminium frame, to the way light reflects off the back of the phone,
using a Galaxy S8 just feels different from using other smartphones… which is why I was heavily contemplating buying one when it first launched.
More specifically, I’d have to agree with Lanh
when I say that the Galaxy S8 Plus fits the bill for me. I want
something with a bigger screen, but something that’s a little more
manageable than a gigantic device such as the Huawei Mate 9.
Maybe I just have trust issues
I don’t have a ton of extra money to spend on new smartphones for
myself, so I need to make sure the ones I do buy with my personal funds
are the right ones for me. And on the surface, the Galaxy S8 Plus is the smartphone for me.
The problem is, Samsung lost my trust this year with its botched Bixby rollout.
We’ve covered Samsung’s Bixby woes extensively in the past, so I’m not going to go too in depth here. If you need a refresher however, here’s a short history of Samsung’s Bixby:
- March 20: Samsung announces Bixby, a little over a week before unveiling the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.
- April 12: Samsung confirms that Bixby voice control, perhaps the most anticipated faction of Bixby, won’t be ready in time for the S8 launch in the U.S.
- April 21: The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus officially go on sale in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and South Korea.
- May 1: Bixby Voice rolls out to devices in South Korea, while the company assures the feature will launch in the U.S. “later this spring”.
- May 31: The Wall Street Journal reports that Bixby Voice will be delayed until late June, due to the voice assistant “struggling to comprehend English syntax and grammar”.
- June 21: Samsung begins rolling out Bixby Voice to beta testers in the U.S.
- July 4: Bixby is reportedly having trouble understanding English due to the lack of big data, which is required for deep learning technology. Poor communication between U.S. and South Korean engineers was also cited as a reason for the delay.
Looking at the timeline above, a couple things are clear: Samsung
is trying to be as transparent as possible when it comes to Bixby
delays, and the company seems to be working hard on making Bixby Voice
as accurate as it can without delaying it too much longer. It’s not in
the company’s best interest to ship a half-baked product to millions of users
just to reach a deadline. So, the longer we wait, the better Bixby
Voice will be when it finally gets here. Glass half full, folks.
Samsung completely overpromised and underdelivered with the launch of Bixby on the S8 line
That’s the good news, anyway. The bad news is that Samsung
completely overpromised and underdelivered with the launch of Bixby on
the S8 line. In doing so, burned this bridge. The Jimmy Bridge.
Not releasing Bixby Voice at launch was a slap in the face to Galaxy S8 buyers, but the fact that it’s still
not available has me worried. It’s now July, over two months after the
S8 first went on sale, and voice control is still not here. This has me
worried for a few reasons. For starters, Samsung already has a poor
reputation for delivering software updates much slower than others. The
unlocked Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, for instance, didn’t receive their Android Nougat updates until about 260 days after Nougat was first released. That’s… not acceptable. Prior to that, I don’t think any Galaxy S6 user would necessarily vouch for Samsung’s speediness when it came to the Marshmallow update, either.
I know software updates are an entirely different ballgame
compared to building an entire personal voice assistant, but it seems
like Samsung is so slow at software development that it just can’t
compete with how quickly other OEMs can deliver new updated software.
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