Samsung Galaxy S8's new digital assistant (Bixby) to be deeply integrated into native apps

Remember Bixby, Samsung's weirdly named digital assistant that's supposed to make its debut on the Galaxy S8? According to SamMobile, the new smart assistant will be used in almost all of the Galaxy S8's native applications, which should be updated in order to have a uniform design. Most likely, Bixby will be replacing S Voice altogether on the S8.

Reportedly, Bixby will be significantly more advanced, and more contextually aware than S Voice (Samsung's current digital assistant), being better integrated system-wide. As an example of Bixby's capabilities, it's said that users will be able to ask it to show specific photos or videos - based on custom criteria - while inside the Samsung Gallery app. By the looks of it, any pre-installed app on the Galaxy S8 could benefit from Bixby.

Bixby will rely on a lot of technology from Viv, a personal assistant that Samsung bought earlier this year. Interestingly, the folks behind Viv were also behind the original Siri app (purchased by Apple back in 2010).

According to rumors, Samsung plans to announce the Galaxy S8 series (apparently including a 6-inch Galaxy S8 Plus) in April. Compared to the Galaxy S7 family, the S8 is expected to bring significant hardware changes, possibly including a screen-to-body ratio of about 90%, a fingerprint scanner embedded in the display, up to 8 GB of RAM, and no 3.5mm headset jack.

All in all, we're impatiently waiting to see what the Samsung Galaxy S8 series has to offer. What about you?