Samsung might release Bixby in the US as soon as next week

Three months on from the release of the Galaxy S8 range of smartphones, Bixby has been stuck in the early stages of beta testing in the US with it supposedly being a little while longer before fully releasing. Those still waiting might finally catch a break as a leak suggests Samsung’s voice assistant will start rolling out next week.

Originally due to be released alongside the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, Bixby has had a bumpy road, only just managing to roll out to South Korean phones a month after the handsets were released. The reason for the Western delay was a big data issue causing the AI “struggling to comprehend English syntax and grammar.”

Elaborating on its announcement of the delay for English speaking customers, Samsung said “Bixby Voice benefits from time to further enhance natural language understanding, and we are currently growing our user testing in the US to prepare for launch.”

The timeframe for S8 and S8+ users was still unclear until a Reddit user, named Bixbyguy released an image that reveals the voice assistant could appear next week. It reads “Bixby Voice Launch Tuesday, 7/18. The long-awaited Bixby Voice launches Tuesday, 7/18. Below are a few tasks we need to complete to ensure we are retail ready! Watch and learn with the NEW Bixby Webinar training!”

While the launch will likely be confined to the US at first, if the information is legitimate then it shouldn’t be a long wait for the English speaking voice assistant to make its way to the rest of the world. The source doesn’t mention where this information was obtained though, so take this information with a pinch of salt. The fact that Samsung has officially announced the launch of its Bixby-powered smart speaker, codenamed Vega, for later this year or early 2018 does mean we are likely to see the English version of the voice assistant roll out sooner rather than later.

KitGuru Says: At this point, if Samsung were to release a version of Bixby that wasn’t retail ready, it could spell disaster for the name in the future. It is in the company’s best interests to get it right with the amount of plans in place for it, so I am intrigued to see how it fares against competitors. Are you looking forward to Bixby?

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