Samsung has confirmed to Axios that it will be shipping the Galaxy S8 without one of the device’s hallmark features, that being the voice part of its Bixby voice assistant.

The digital assistant, which Samsung announced last month in conjunction with its newest smartphones, is a bit different than Siri or Google Now due to its affinity for text and camera-powered queries in addition to voice commands.

While Bixby will launch with the computer vision chops of its Vision feature and the deluxe notifications screen it calls Bixby Home, Samsung has detailed that the assistant’s hallmark feature, Bixby Voice, will be unavailable to US customers until “later this spring.”

This all exemplifies what a mad dash Samsung has been making to enter the voice assistant fray following its acquisition of Viv Labs this past October.

Samsung had already detailed that Bixby voice wouldn’t be launching in full force, originally detailing that voice controls would be integrated into some key native apps with a limited number of languages being supported at launch.
http://thetechlicense.com/2017/04/12/galaxy-s8-wont-launch-with-samsungs-bixby-voice-assistant/