Interestingly enough, there has been a surge of news regarding Samsung's assistant feature, Bixby, recently. A small surge, sure, but definitely more news than what's typically out there. First, we heard that Samsung was ending Bixby Rewards, which basically handed out rewards for folks who used Samsung's assistant. And, most recently, we heard that Bixby was (finally) adding support for sports scores and headlines, thanks to a new partnership with theScore.

As someone who doesn't use Bixby, I'll admit I was kind of surprised to hear that it didn't already support sports scores. Seems like a huge thing to be missing out on -- especially with the World Cup going on right now. But, looks like Bixby will offer up scores before the global tournament comes to an end, so that's good.

That announcement made me realize that, up until now, I wouldn't have been using Bixby much at all even if I had a device that supported it.

I use Google Assistant pretty frequently, but it's usually in the same way that I use Siri (that's why Siri's lack of features when compared to Assistant have never really bothered me, even if I can also admit that it's a huge disparity between the two). That is to say, depending on the time of year, the digital personal assistants are typically telling me what time certain games start, what the scores are, and other sports-related content.

Some features are better late than never, and I think having sports scores is definitely one of those situations. It should have been there right out of the gate, but at least it's there now. The inclusion of sports headlines in there is a nice touch, too.

I don't see Samsung giving up on Bixby any time soon. If for no other reason than it wants a competing option to Google's Assistant (and maybe even Microsoft's Cortana). And while Bixby Rewards might've felt like a blatant effort on Samsung's part to get people to use the feature, it's not like it's the only company that incentivizes customers to use a digital assistant. Both Google and Apple have had plenty of deals that reward folks for using their services.

But, here's my question: Did it work? If you were using Bixby to get those rewards, did it convince you to keep using the feature? Is Bixby your go-to option these days? Or do you still prefer another digital assistant over Samsung's offering? Let me know!