Last week, Samsung announced a Bixby Early Access Program that’d let U.S.-based Galaxy S8 owners try Bixby Voice before it launches to the public. Now that preview is rolling out.
Bixby Voice is now appearing on the U.S. Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones that were enrolled in the Bixby Early Access Program. As expected, Bixby Voice lets you perform actions on your phone like launching the camera app and taking a selfie, opening the settings app and adjusting the display brightness, and opening the clock to set a timer.
Also included is a Labs section that’ll let you try using Bixby Voice with third-party apps like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Gmail, and Uber. For example, you can tell Bixby to open the Facebook app and show you your notifications.
Because this is an early preview, don’t be surprised if you try Bixby Voice on your Galaxy S8 and encounter some bugs or performance issues. The point of this beta test is for Samsung to get Bixby into the hands of more testers so that it can squash bugs and get Bixby Voice where it wants it to be before rolling Bixby Voice out to the general public.
If you enrolled in the Bixby Early Access Program and haven’t yet gotten Bixby Voice, you should go to Bixby’s “About” screen and see if you’ve got any updates. Once you get Bixby Voice up and running, be sure to share your first impressions with us!