Bixby

Anybody have anything nice to say about Bixby, the Samsung voice assistant?

It is a real pain and I have yet to find a way of stopping it taking over my camera.

I never use it and yet it keeps invading my attempts to keep things simple.

Tony

London

I think what it has going for it is its ability to control functions on the phone. For example you can use it to restart the phone, turn off the display, or things like that. I used it for a while on my Note 8 and Note 9. I haven't bothered to enable it on the 10+.

Never use it. Think I had to buy an app to make the button be a camera shutter button instead (might be bx actions). Handy for candid street photos, especially. With a double click of the home button to open the stock camera app.

Glen Barrington wrote:

Well, it is why I bought a Pixel 3a, and why when my Samsung Frontier S3 watch dies, I will look into Wear OS watches. So I suspect Google kind of likes it in a weird sort of way!

Are you saying you intentionally avoided a Samsung phone because of Bixby? Can't Bixby be turned off?

My Samsung 10" tablet pre-dates Bixby, but the back button on the wrong side continues to annoy me.

I wonder how many Windows users disable Cortana? Only Microsoft's hairdresser knows for sure. My work Macbook has Siri but she/it is totally unobtrusive.

TonyGamble wrote:

It is a real pain and I have yet to find a way of stopping it taking over my camera.

I never use it and yet it keeps invading my attempts to keep things simple.

Bixby turned up after a large update, but seemed to require initialisation/agreements before it would become active, so it lurked to the left and could be ignored. The phone seemed to a bit unstable while Bixby lurked. I hear that it's now been pulled.

Now, after a recent update, it's gone away, and the phone is back to normal.

So, RIP Bixby.

Anyone remember Bill Bixby?

WryCuda wrote:

So, RIP Bixby.

Good news. I wonder what the Bixby button on my wife's Note 9 will do now?

Anyone remember Bill Bixby?

Yes, he was in all the Hulk movies.

He also directed at least 8 episodes of the cop show parody, Sledge Hammer. That show was uneven, but the best episodes are among my favorite comedy shows.

CAcreeks wrote:

WryCuda wrote:

So, RIP Bixby.

Good news. I wonder what the Bixby button on my wife's Note 9 will do now?

Anyone remember Bill Bixby?

Yes, he was in all the Hulk movies.

He also directed at least 8 episodes of the cop show parody, Sledge Hammer. That show was uneven, but the best episodes are among my favorite comedy shows.

Bill Bixby was in My Favourite Martian and The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father as well as The Incredible Hulk.

While on this topic can I ask if anyone uses the Ask Google vocal system.

I've never bothered but we were asking someone something last week and he pulled out his phone and simply said 'What is the pub with the big garden near *****' and got the right answer instantly.

Do people find it works? And with which applications in particular?

Tony

TonyGamble wrote:

While on this topic can I ask if anyone uses the Ask Google vocal system.

I've never bothered but we were asking someone something last week and he pulled out his phone and simply said 'What is the pub with the big garden near *****' and got the right answer instantly.

Do people find it works? And with which applications in particular?

Yes, it works pretty well, if you treat the Google female person as a voice-input search query bot. The only things I don't like is when she says "Here ya go" for obvious answers such as business hours or locations, or when she gives a long-winded answer quoted directly from Wikipedia.
You must have WiFi reception or good data service (4G, LTE, whatever) which pretty much excludes the entire state of Oregon. I realize you are in London, Tony.

WryCuda wrote:

TonyGamble wrote:

It is a real pain and I have yet to find a way of stopping it taking over my camera.

I never use it and yet it keeps invading my attempts to keep things simple.

Bixby turned up after a large update, but seemed to require initialisation/agreements before it would become active, so it lurked to the left and could be ignored. The phone seemed to a bit unstable while Bixby lurked. I hear that it's now been pulled.

Now, after a recent update, it's gone away, and the phone is back to normal.

A newer update has reinstalled Bixby, which announced its presence by making my wife's phone "unstable". Well not really unstable, just anxious to have you enable all the features while it lurked among the other screens.

I was able to disable all the features, and make Bixby more or less go away. There were warnings that doing so might make some general features inoperable. Humbug!

I'll be getting a new phone for myself next week, and it won't be a Samsung.

Web searches revealed that most people hate Bixby, and there are multiple posts on disabling it. Not possible to delete Bixby absolutely.

WryCuda wrote:

A newer update has reinstalled Bixby, which announced its presence by making my wife's phone "unstable". Well not really unstable, just anxious to have you enable all the features while it lurked among the other screens.

I was able to disable all the features, and make Bixby more or less go away. There were warnings that doing so might make some general features inoperable. Humbug!

I'll be getting a new phone for myself next week, and it won't be a Samsung.

Web searches revealed that most people hate Bixby, and there are multiple posts on disabling it. Not possible to delete Bixby absolutely.

I'm happy enough with a Motorola One, which cost around $350 when I bought it and still sells for about the same price, although now it has 5G. The "One" models run vanilla Android with updates, so they're kind of like running vanilla Windows 10 without vendor bloatware.

Open Camera is a huge improvement over the standard Android camera app. The standard messaging app is not easy to use, but I use Signal more than SMS anyway.

My wife has a Samsung Note, primarily for the pen, and complains about Bixby from time to time.

I am using the Samsung S8 and until I was alerted to this thread I had forgotten about Bixby.

Maybe we have got rid of it in the UK. Like, fingers crossed, that virus!

5g is £33 per month from o2 so I'll do without. Currently I pay £12 and it 'works'

Tony

TonyGamble wrote:

I am using the Samsung S8 and until I was alerted to this thread I had forgotten about Bixby. Maybe we have got rid of it in the UK. Like, fingers crossed, that virus!

For your sake, hopefully so.

Just yesterday I was playing a podcast on my wife's phone so we could finish listening while watching the fireflies come out. I hit the Bixby button by mistake, and as usual, the phone asked if I wanted to "upgrade" Bixby. Happens every time.

5g is £33 per month from o2 so I'll do without. Currently I pay £12 and it 'works'.

Yes, it's odd that US telecomm provider Verizon advertises 5G heavily, but they never say what it's good for. Obviously it's good for them to charge higher fees. AFAICT it's only good for consumers when in a crowded location, such as a sports stadium, where many concurrent sessions overwhelm 4G bandwidth.

I'm starting to use Siri on my Macbook. The Google woman is rather annoying with her "here ya go" answers. Siri seems low key, and for that reason preferable if the Macbook is open.

This thread reminded me to check and now there is an option to use the Bixby button for other things, so I have set it to open the camera. The BX Actions app is no longer needed and no longer works, I tried that first.