Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ not only debuted a new design language for the Galaxy S series, but the South Korean tech giant also used these two devices to launch is own digital AI assistant known as Bixby.
You’ve probably heard of or maybe you already use the Google Assistant. Well, Bixby is Samsung’s version of the same and it comes baked into Galaxy S8 and S8+, just like the Google Assistant with respect to the Pixel and Pixel XL phones.
When the Google Pixel and Pixel XL came in with the then exclusive Google Assistant, it took some time before developers found their way around it and actually started using it on non-Pixel devices. Well, this is the same thing that is happening with the Bixby assistant with respect to the older Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
If you own any of these two phones, you can now enjoy some of the nifty features that Bixby brings to Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ users. However, since this is just a workaround by developers, the feature set is quite limited at the moment. You can forget about enjoying the entire Bixby experience on your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, but you can at least have the Bixby Home, something that resembles the Google Now cards. When you swipe left, you will be able to see all relevant cards, however, you won’t be able to call up to Bixby when you want to execute different tasks like with the case of the Google Assistant on non-Pixel devices.
The good side of the story is that this method gives you a chance to see what exactly Samsung has created as a Google Assistant competitor on your Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
Setting up Bixby on your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge is quite easy. In fact, you don’t need to root your device for this to work. All you need is to download and install the new Samsung Galaxy S8 launcher APK as well as the Bixby APK. When done, first install the launcher and then follow it with the Bixby APK. After the installation, simply long-press the Home screen in order to open the launcher settings. Go ahead and activate Bixby Home and restart your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge.
Well, that’s it! You should be able to access Bixby by swiping left on your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge home screen once the phone restarts. At this point in time, we can’t tell whether Sammy will do a “Google Assistant” and make the Bixby AI assistant available to other devices via a software update, but hopefully, this will be the case.