Samsung Galaxy S8 Bixby voice command rolls out in South Korea

Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ owners in South Korea will start seeing the Bixby voice-command feature

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Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ owners in South Korea will start seeing the Bixby voice-command feature. (Source: Reuters)

Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ owners in South Korea will start seeing the Bixby voice-command option for the phones. The Bixby voice-command is supposed to be the software highlight for the new Samsung flagships, but it wasn’t made a part of the launch because of “performance issues.”

According to a report in ZDNet, Samsung has begun the voice command service in Korea on Monday, and also sent a notice to all users of the Galaxy S8 phones. Galaxy S8, S8+ went on sale in Korea on April 21. The phones have also gone on sale in US, Europe, though it looks like the US users will get the voice command feature only by the end of May.

In India, the Samsung Galaxy S8 sales are expected to start from May 2, 2017, and currently the phone is up for pre-order. The review unit we have is also lacking the voice command feature, though the vision search, reminders, and other features of Bixby are working.

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Samsung has delayed the launch of the voice search feature due to issues with the performance. According to a Wall Street Journal report from earlier, the English-version of Bixby won’t be hitting the phone till the end of May.

A spokesperson from the company said during internal testing, the English version of Bixby lagged behind the Korean version. The spokesperson added the company executives were still trying to figure out when the English version of the voice assistant can be launched.

Currently the Google Assistant is available on the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, which makes it even more awkward for the South Korean technology firm, given that Bixby is supposed to be the star of these phones.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy S8+ review blog: Worth a buy, but wait a while

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Samsung has also given Bixby a dedicated launch button, which it seems users can’t reconfigure for now. While the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ pre-orders have been very high, the phones haven’t got an all smooth launch.

The company is also in the process of rolling out an update to fix a ‘Red Tint’ issue with the Galaxy S8 screens. Samsung has insisted this is not an issue with the display quality.

“Samsung has listened to feedback and has decided to release a software update starting from this week which will provide customers with a further enhanced ability to adjust the color setting to their preference,” Samsung said in an emailed statement, according to Bloomberg.