Samsung has put Bixby in every flagship device since the Galaxy S8. The feature has also expanded to other devices, but without the Voice portion. But for older flagships with Bixby Voice, the company intends to axe it from devices still running older Android versions.
SamMobile reports that Samsung will end Bixby Voice support for devices running Android 7 Nougat and Android 8 Oreo. Specifically, this will affect Galaxy S8, S8+ S8 Active, Note 8, S9, S9+, and A9 2018. This will come into effect starting 1 January 2020. That said, this is not really an actual issue, simply because all the mentioned devices are eligible for an Android 9 Pie upgrade.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is unaffected, and according to SamMobile’s report, there’s a good reason for this. The Galaxy Note 9 launched with an improved version of the assistant, called Bixby 2.0. The move to phase out BixBy Voice from the devices mentioned earlier can be seen as a move to have all of the devices adopt the new version of the company’s digital assistant. And with good reason too, considering the newer one comes with third-party support, among other improvements
All in all, this will only affect the users of devices mentioned above who do not download and install updates when they’re available. For eveyone else, you’re experience with Bixby should remain unchanged.
(Source: SamMobile)
