By Geoffrey A. Fowler
A new talking sidekick arrived Wednesday on millions of Samsung
Galaxy S8 phones. To understand what makes chatting with Bixby
different from Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, Samsung would like
us to picture Iron Man.
Yes, the superhero. Injong Rhee, Samsung's head of mobile
software R&D, told me the electronics giant's late-to-the-game
voice assistant was inspired by Tony Stark. In the movies, he just
barks commands and his systems leap into action. Billionaire
inventors don't have to tap through menus to fire their unibeam
chest projectors.
With Bixby, nor will you, when taking a selfie, changing the TV
channel or, eventually, setting the dishwasher to eco-mode. Samsung
wants to make all kinds of devices conversational. Siri can tell
you what movie won Best Picture in 1991, but won't turn on your
iPhone's flashlight.
What Bixby lacks -- at least for now -- is Iron Man's
execution.
In Bixby's first incarnation, arriving in the U.S. as a software
update after a three-month delay, Samsung struggles under the
weight of its ambition. Want to take a selfie with the "cozy"
filter and text it to your buddy without touching a screen? Sure,
Bixby can do that. But Bixby can't control all my most important
apps, can't reliably comprehend me and can't find some answers
readily available from rival AI assistants.
Verdict: Bixby over-promises and under-delivers. Lucky for
Samsung, so do most of its rivals. And Bixby still manages to bring
an important new dimension to the crowded field of talking
tech.
What Bixby Does Well
You summon Bixby like other voice assistants, by calling a wake
phrase: "Hi Bixby." It -- well, he or she, depending on which
gender you choose -- also pops up when you press a dedicated button
on the left side of the S8. The button is fast and pretty
handy.
At its best, Bixby is less of a secretary and more what AI
futurists call a "conversational interface." It's one antidote to
the reality our gadgets are getting more complicated, with useful
features hidden by buttons, menus and gestures. Do you know where
to find your mobile data usage? Me either. But with Bixby, I say,
"check my mobile data usage" and there it is.
Using (mostly) ordinary English, Bixby can operate every last
one of the S8's gazillion settings, as well as all the functions in
12 built-in apps such as the Gallery, Messages and internet
Browser. Another 21 apps including Email, Gmail, Maps, Yelp and
Uber are listed as experimental.
Bixby is much more helpful than Siri on function-based commands.
It can "take a selfie," giving you a countdown before it shoots.
Google's Assistant, built into the Pixel and other Android phones,
is a bit more capable than Siri, but still lacks Bixby's ability to
tie together actions. Only Bixby can follow, "Open my last photo
and post it to Facebook."
What's better, Bixby lives on top of other apps and knows what's
going on in them. When you're looking at a photo, you can say "add
stickers," and it knows what you mean. When dictation might be
called for, Bixby replaces a keyboard.
Key to helping it improve, Bixby also asks for feedback. When
Bixby can't quite decide what you're asking for, it'll present
options. If it mishears you, you can correct individual words or
map certain functions.
You and Bixby can even have your own secret code, called "quick
commands." I taught mine to "activate deep throat" -- launch the
voice-recorder app and take a memo.
Where Bixby Struggles
"Play Lady Gaga," you said? Sadly, Bixby heard "play lady
kaka"...and then replied, "Here's the time." Yes, that really
happened, one of the many times Bixby just couldn't get me.
"Caller" became "collar"; then there's "super California lipstick
expealidocious."
Bixby's voice could also use lessons in elocution: It pronounced
2:48 "t'forty eight" and read an error message as, "Looks like
there's a bit of problem" [sic]. Samsung says updates it rolled out
even in the last day improve these problems -- but clearly it
doesn't have Google, Apple or Amazon's years of voice
experience.
Bixby's bigger challenge is grokking what you really mean. When
I opened a photo and said "brighten this," it turned up screen
brightness instead of adjusting the photo.
Bixby doesn't have much knowledge about my life. It gets
confused when I ask for directions to work, either opening calendar
listings or giving me directions to the nearest OfficeMax.
Spotify is just one of the popular apps that Bixby can't
control. (Apple, too, has been slow at rolling out third-party Siri
integration.) Surely Samsung will get to the big apps, but I've got
little hope for less-common ones, like my password manager.
The existential question for Bixby is whether it's providing
functionality that matters. Did Apple just forget to give Siri
flashlight powers, or did it realize nobody cares about flashlight
voice control? We've been conditioned to operate phones with our
fingers, so using voice can actually be a hindrance.
Google has focused its Assistant on answering complicated
queries and anticipating things you might like. While Bixby can
search the web for trivia, it can't translate or offer traffic
advisories. When I asked Bixby, "Where should I go for dinner?" it
pulled up a website called "Wheel of Dinner." Fortunately, Google's
restaurant-savvy Assistant is still available on the S8.
Bixby's Next Steps
Samsung has a history of questionable software. It once touted a
feature that let you operate a phone by hovering your hand over the
screen. A previous assistant, called S-Voice, barely worked.
Despite the stammering start, Bixby isn't one of these. I've
watched Bixby improve at an incredible pace even over the last few
days of its beta trial.
And its focus should be more on the talking home than the
talking phone. Samsung is one of the few tech companies that makes
enough different kinds of electronic gadgets -- from speakers and
TVs to fridges and vacuums -- to potentially make good on the
vision of a smart home. (Perhaps Samsung should have first put
Bixby in a dishwasher.) Apple, Google and Amazon have to rely on
partners to put their voice technologies into devices other than
TVs and speakers, and only Amazon has made serious headway. And
Samsung now owns Viv and SmartThings, two well-regarded startups
focused on connecting disparate devices and services.
It's going to take time for Bixby to get even as reliable as
Siri, but Samsung has as much money as Iron Man to throw at the
problem.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 19, 2017 12:42 ET (16:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Samsung Electronics (PK) (USOTC:SSNHZ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Samsung Electronics (PK) (USOTC:SSNHZ)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024
