Samsung Weighs Dropping Its Bixby AI Assistant and Galaxy Apps Store as Google Dangles New Mobile Apps Deal (reuters.com) 31
Samsung is considering dropping its Bixby virtual assistant and Galaxy Apps Store from its mobile devices as part of a new global revenue-sharing deal with Alphabet's Google, Reuters is reporting, citing documents. From the report: But Samsung said it has no plans to drop either Bixby or Galaxy Store from its devices, saying both services are an important part of the Galaxy ecosystem. "We remain committed to our own services and ecosystem," it said in a statement. Google has tried for years to get Samsung, the world's leading mobile device maker by units sold, to drop its own services and give greater prominence to Google's search, Assistant and Play Store apps, according to a person previously involved in the relationship. The search giant, whose Android software powers phones from Samsung and dozens of other companies, sometimes as an incentive gives manufacturers a portion of ad revenue generated from Google apps featured on their devices. But Samsung has clung to efforts to promote its own apps, from which it can collect all the revenue, despite years of glitches and tepid user interest.
Does anyone really even use Bixby? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I use the Bixby Routines but not the voice assistant. But I also don't like Vice Assistance too much anyways.
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I've owned several Galaxy devices and never used it once. Maybe in countries other than the USA it's more popular?
Yo tambien. I've only ever summoned Bixby by accident or when forced into configuration during setup.
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I think technically my alarm that goes off every morning is the Bixby alarm, but that's about it. It is nice though. When it first goes off it gives a little news report (and I think a weather report - I'm always a bit groggy when the alarm is talking).
In general though, it sits unused and I just use the Google Assistant - though even that is annoying as it's MUCH less capable of recognizing an "OK Google" from across the room as compared to Apple's Siri.
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No. I wish I could remove it but it's a bit difficult to do so.
Re: Does anyone really even use Bixby? (Score:1)
Leverage (Score:2)
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It is probably to get a deal from Google. Also they will probably allow the Apps to deprecate into uselessness. Much like how when Jobs released the Intel Mac, he said they were plenty of PowerPC based systems going out too. Their was one schedule upgrade on one of the Mac Lines. Then everything went to Intel. Power PC software support was around for about 5 years, but became less and less supported over time. To a point when they said we are going full 64bit and dropped PowerPC Support all together.
Samsung: Great hardware, craptastic software (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, please let me summon Google Assistant, Alexa, or whatever I want with the "Bixby button" or other gesture to summon an AI assistant. Bixby is crap. I'm so tired of Samsung, which makes great hardware, crippling it with crapware. Let me use Google's great software with Samsung's great Note or Tab devices. Damn it. Samsung Notes is one of the few exceptions.
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Please! Please! Please! (Score:3)
Now if they would lose the other hard coded apps (Score:4, Informative)
built into Samsung devices. I mean there are so many junk apps you can't delete...
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For the Galaxy S5 or S9 you can install LineageOS which wipes all the junk apps. I had it on my S5 until I upgraded last year
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I'm still astounded people would buy their phones and put up with that sort of bloatware. Granted, I've heard from people who *like* all that crap, but I've never understood people who don't like it and STILL buy Samsung. At least, not unless they simply plan to replace the entire OS.
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Many Samsung apps are legit better than Google's. Music, gallery, email, browser. There's of course stuff I don't use but it's not like you can easily get rid of google's crap you don't want, either.
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But you can always download apps off the play store to replace the google ones. I use Firefox for my browser, and Outlook for my email. Unless you really love Samsung's, I'm sure you can find better ones one the app store. Samsung isn't really known for writing great apps either.
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If you feel comfortable putting the phone in developer mode and using a debugger. I used it to get rid of FaceBook, Dropbox, and several other crapware from my Samsung.
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There is always the bxActions app that lets you do something useful with the button(or disable it). I use it as a flash light button. Infinitely more useful than bixby every could be.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jamworks.bxactions [google.com]
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There is always the bxActions app that lets you do something useful with the button(or disable it). I use it as a flash light button. Infinitely more useful than bixby every could be.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jamworks.bxactions [google.com]
I did not know this existed. Thanks!
I do utilize Bixby routines (dunno why they lump that in under the Bixby banner, personally) as I love the fact that I can set it so that my phone geofences the office and turns all volumes down while I'm at the office, but then turns them back up when I get home.
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You are my fucking hero!
Tepid User Interest is an understatement (Score:2)
I dropped Samsung and went with an LG phone for my last upgrade in part to avoid Bixby. It's an anti-feature.
Reach a deal with Google, then offload to Huawei (Score:2)
If Samsung were really truly sneaky, they could use the Galaxy App Store and Bixby to leverage google into a good deal, and then sell the lot to Huawei. Huawei has its own app market, but that pales in comparison to the Play Store. There are some Apps that are in Samsungs Marketplace that are not in Huawei's, and also, there are a few technologies here and there (API wrappers and substitutes, AI subrutines in Bixby not yet present in Celia) that Huawei may find interesting. And since they are desperate, and
Yep. (Score:2)
Have owned four Samsung phones in a row.
Have never used Bixby and only ended up in Galaxy store by mistake when I wanted things like a simple calculator app and it tries to install the Samsung one.
To be honest, I'd gladly pay money to get rid of both forever (but not a lot of money).
Bixby is not an important part of any ecosystem (Score:1)
Play With Fire (Google) (Score:2)
And get burned!
Samsung would be foolish to dump their store
Next for Samsung (Score:2)
i wished samsun would do just that (Score:2)