The Samsung Galaxy Note 9, for me, is a more exciting prospect than the Galaxy S9 releases. Galaxy Note phones are always more exciting, more feature-rich, and, generally speaking, better all round phones.
And the Galaxy Note 9 is coming later on in 2018. And it will be the place where Bixby gets its second coming. Yep, that’s right: Bixby – AKA the worst digital assistant around – is not dead. It’s coming back. And it will go by the name Bixby 2.0.
Here’s the official line via Samsung on what’s cracking with Bixby 2.0:
“For Bixby 1.0,” said Samsung, “we focused on a fast rollout to the market. Expanding the ecosystem was difficult. So Bixby 2.0 will strengthen this aspect and we are working intensely. In December last year, we began taking applications for the public beta version. So far over 800 companies have applied and are testing it. At this speed, I think we will be able to unveil Bixby 2.0 when we launch the Galaxy Note 9.”
Samsung is now working on bringing Bixby to more of its products, the company’s upcoming QLED HDTV, for instance, as well as Samsung’s rumoured smart speaker. Whatever happens: Samsung has plans for Bixby, so the digital assistant is not going anywhere.
The Galaxy Note 9 will also be the first commercial handset that features a fingerprint scanner built into its display. This is something Apple wanted for the iPhone X but failed to pull off in time for the handset’s release last year.
