Today, Samsung will launch the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus and Galaxy S21 Ultra (I’ll get the brown inspired by Zune, thanks). This is happening a few months earlier than normal for the S line of phones, but otherwise the script will remain the same.
Here’s the script. Samsung will be the first major Android manufacturer to step out of the gate with Qualcomm’s newest chips, this time with the Snapdragon 888. Samsung will use its immense marketing budget and long-standing operator relationships to ensure it is seen as the default option if you want a premium Android phone – especially if you are making this purchase at a U.S. carrier store.
Other parts of the script are not necessarily guaranteed, but are safe bets. They are likely to be excellent, well-balanced and capable phones. Samsung will make statements for large cameras that will require rigorous testing for verification. And, of course, the ever swinging pendulum of Samsung’s OneUI software will continue its current arc of overload.
That last part of the script got me thinking about one of the main recurring characters in it: Bixby. Samsung’s digital assistant was launched in 2017 with the Galaxy S8. He was more of a digital assistant, but as Dan Seifert wrote at the time, he had a very clear and very good mandate that helped to distinguish him from Alexa, Siri and Google. Samsung was not trying to turn Bixby into a general-purpose know-it-all assistant. Had focus:
Samsung knows it can’t compete with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others when it comes to raw machine learning power and putting huge amounts of information at its fingertips, so it’s using Bixby to solve a simpler task than these companies have largely ignored. Bixby will not try to be the assistant at all. Instead, it will be that “brilliant companion” who will complement these other services. It is a new user interface, not a new way of asking for the height of the Eiffel Tower.
Bixby was meant to be an interface, not an assistant. Was this really a viable strategy? Who knows! Certainly not Samsung, which quickly did what Samsung tends to do with software: give in to the creep feature. In the past few years, Bixby has become what was originally designed not be: a worse version of Google Assistant.
Samsung tried to push Bixby. He created a dedicated button for him. He later released that button, but attributed it to a long press of the power button. He built Bixby routines (which were related to Bixby’s original purpose). But then he linked Bixby to a content feed that was to the left of the home screen. And announced independent smart Bixby speakers that were never really sold.
At Vergecast, we have a joke that says Bixby is a dog that wears shoes and is also a butler. He’s well-intentioned and wants to please, but he ends up stumbling a lot and doesn’t do a good job of serving drinks or answering the door because he’s a dog, wearing shoes.
Speaking of shoes, put yourself in Samsung’s. Why do you continue to develop Bixby? I can only think of two reasons, one good and one bad.
The good reason: protection against Google and Android. It is always possible for Google to do something notorious and Samsung wants to get rid of and be without Google services (or even Android itself). It is not a terrible idea to have your own digital assistant filtering just in case. At the very least, it can serve as a signal to Google that Samsung is, in fact, willing to just walk away and make Tizen and Bixby in certain negotiations.
That’s the good reason – or at least the closest to a good reason I can come up with – but I don’t know if it’s the real reason. I suspect the real reason is the same as the bad reason: Samsung is still, after all these years and after all its successes, trying to be Apple.
Being Apple is an abbreviation for having an end-to-end ecosystem, where your users live and breathe your services and are therefore stuck with your products. If you intend to have a holistic and comprehensive ecosystem, you need to cover all the bases, and therefore: Bixby.
And also: your own fitness service. And your own health app and ecosystem of connections. Your own family of Bluetooth headsets. Your own tracker tag (even before Apple announces its tracker tag). Your own tablets. Your own music service. Your own news service. And so on.
All of these are things that Samsung has tried or is actively trying to do now. Some of them are very successful! Samsung’s Galaxy Buds line will today consist of three different variants of headphones, each with their own raison d’être and each one very good (assuming the new Galaxy Buds Pro doesn’t smell bad).
Samsung has always had aspirations to build a whole world (or, er, Galaxy) for its users to live, just like Apple. What is frustrating is that Samsung is very good at many things and if you just lean a little more on those things, you could chart a more innovative and interesting path.
See the Samsung DeX, just for an example. It allows you to connect your phone to a larger screen, such as a TV or monitor, and get a complete desktop interface. It’s genuinely cool, but, I suspect, more of a technology demonstration than a frequently used feature. But the Snapdragon 888 that will be on these S21 phones will, in many ways, be as powerful as the chips that will run Windows Arm laptops this year.
There is an untapped potential with DeX that Apple could not match for years if Samsung could find out. Instead, it is struggling to launch Tile-style tracking tags before Apple can.
If Samsung were to focus a little more on where it is ahead and a little less on where it is unfortunately behind, it would produce much more interesting products.
That’s why I’m calling it: I’m sick of Bixby. If Samsung can’t make it to the end with Siri (a low bar!) Or find a way to bring it back to its more focused roots, it’s time to send it to the farm. Or, at least, give users the option to remap the on / off button to Google Assistant (without the need for third-party hacks).
There is a small glimmer of hope. Jimmy is Promo’s leak of the new version of Samsung’s Android OneUI version shows that users will be able to choose between Google’s feed or Samsung’s free feed on their home screens.
Samsung’s user interface on top of Android swung like a pendulum between two poles. It is overwhelmed with features and a strange user interface for a few years, so the pendulum hangs there at the end of its arc before returning to a cleaner and simpler user interface. It’s time for the pendulum to swing back. And that means it’s time to let Bixby go.
The last of the CES
Are all of these ads technically from CES or are some of them just adjacent to CES? When CES is totally virtual, is it an event where things happen or just a mood, a mood? Am I using jokes about philosophical dilemmas as a smokescreen to cover up my inability to determine whether these things are technically a part of the CES or not?
Sometimes, questions have no answers. All we can really know in this world is that laser projectors are still pretty cool.
┏ Asus latte delivers films instead of coffee and milk. I have an Anker / Nebula version of one of these mini projectors / speakers and it’s one of the best things I put in my bag when I travel (er, when I travel). You really need a dark room for it to be good, but you’d be surprised how much more convenient it is to just plug an HDMI cable into the projector you have than to deal with any TV that might be in the hotel or Airbnb. I may be interested in switching to that, as the Android TV version of Nebula is old, buggy and insufficiently supported.
┏ LG’s latest 4K laser projector supports AirPlay 2 for $ 2,999.
┏ LG’s new batch of gaming monitors includes 4K / 144Hz panel with HDMI 2.1.
┏ But wait, Asus has even more gaming monitors equipped with HDMI 2.1 ports.
┏ Asus’ new CX9 Chromebook offers military-grade durability.
┏ Asus’ 2021 line of notebooks includes two new dual-screen ZenBooks. A new member joins the Keyboard In The Front club!
If you’re new to the ZenBook Duo line, laptops have a main screen (the normal one), as well as a secondary screen (the ScreenPad Plus) that is built into the top half of the keyboard deck. It’s not really big enough to do anything, but you can load your distractions (Twitter, Discord, etc.) into it to keep them out of your main work area. Some programs, including Adobe’s, also offer ScreenPad-specific interfaces.
┏ MSI 2021 gaming laptops have Nvidia RTX 3000 series mobile graphics cards and support for Wi-Fi 6E. Monica Chin
MSI unveiled its line of portable gaming laptops in early 2021 at CES on Wednesday. The great news is that all new releases have been equipped with the new GeForce RTX 3000 graphics cards from Nvidia. In addition to improved frame rates and radius tracking, these chips will offer Nvidia’s latest features, including its scalable BAR technology. They are also receiving support for Wi-Fi 6E.
┏ The new Creator 15 from MSI comes with RTX 3000 graphics. Monica Chin
Creator 15 is just the latest game-focused and creator laptops to adopt Nvidia’s new RTX 3000 graphics, after its launch at CES 2021. These laptops will use the third generation of Nvidia’s Max-Q design, which is designed for gaming and content laptops. The new GPUs also include a new Dynamic Boost 2.0 technology that leverages AI to balance power between CPU, GPU and GPU memory in real time.
┏ MSI’s new GE76 Raider Dragon Edition Tiamat is a tribute to an ancient goddess. When I was 10 years old playing 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons I would have lost my mind if I knew that someday there would be a laptop for games with the Tiamat theme.
┏ The best technology at CES 2020: where are they now?
More of The Verge
┏ Chill imbibes: within the burgeoning relaxing drinks business. Excellent resource by Liz Lopatto. I have seen ads for these drinks everywhere and wondering what the deal really was. Here’s the answer.
┏ Apple’s first major investments in racial actions include a developer center in Detroit and an HBCU technology center.
┏ Intel is replacing its CEO next month.
┏ Ring adds end-to-end encryption to protect your video streams.
┏ Google says a fix for delays in tracking Android’s coronavirus is on its way.
┏ Nvidia and AMD solve the big GPU shortage.