Samsung will be adding a new way to take calls on Galaxy phones with its upcoming One UI 5 software update. The Bixby Text Call feature will bring the ability to answer a phone call by texting, with the Bixby assistant transcribing between voice and text on both ends.
How does Bixby Text Call work?
When using Bixby Text Call, you’ll be able to type a text message to answer an incoming call, which Bixby will then translate to speech for the caller on the other end. The caller will hear an automated message alerting them that the call is being answered through Bixby. After that, Bixby will translate the caller’s speech to text for the recipient. The feature works on-device, meaning it’s not sent to the cloud for processing, and the conversation transcript is saved in the Samsung call app. The audio itself is deleted right after the recognition process takes place, Samsung says.
“Bixby has evolved over many years as a specialized voice control agent,” Sally Jeong, vice president and head of the Framework Research and Development Group for Samsung’s Mobile Experience Business, said via a translator. “And it requires a lot of training of Bixby so that it can actually identify and understand the voices during phone calls.”
What obstacles did Samsung need to overcome to make this feature available?
Samsung’s Bixby feature is only launching now, roughly five years after Bixby’s debut, because the technology has reached a point where it can accurately understand colloquial speech. Differentiating between speech being received through the phone’s microphone and the caller on the other end is another technical challenge that Samsung had to perfect before launching this feature.
How many people use the Bixby voice assistant?
Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant launched in 2017, but it hasn’t gained as much traction as Apple’s Siri, the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
A 2020 report from Voicebot.ai examining voice assistant adoption among US adults found that Samsung’s Bixby only accounts for 6.7% of the phone-based voice assistant market, while Siri leads the pack at 45.1%. The Google Assistant placed in second with 29.9%, while Amazon’s Alexa claimed 18.3%.
But Bixby usage has grown since 2018. That same report indicates that Samsung’s market share jumped from 4.7% in 2018 to 6.7% in 2020, while Apple and Google’s respective slices had slightly shrunk.
When will the Bixby Text Call feature be available?
The feature is only available in Korean to start, but it is part of Samsung’s effort to make multitasking on Galaxy devices easier. The company plans to expand into other languages, including English, next year.
It remains to be seen whether features like Bixby Text Call will help bring Samsung’s digital helper up to speed with alternatives from Apple and Google. But what is clear is that Apple, Google and Samsung are using their virtual assistants in attempts to improve the phone-calling experience.
