Bixby, Samsung's digital assistant, is finally available for your Galaxy S8 and S8+ for T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon

Nothing like waiting months for a feature with a dedicated hardware button.

Bixby Voice is now available on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ in the US after a three month delay and short testing period through an early access program. That means you now have the full Bixby experience that was first revealed during the S8’s unveiling. I took it for a good spin a few weeks back it was very slow, buggy, and very under powered compared to Siri or Google Assistant.

To get Bixby on your Galaxy S8 or S8+, you’ll only need to hit the Bixby button on your phone to open Bixby. Once you have done that, the update process should initiate pretty quickly to bring in the new Voice capabilities. You may have to login to your Samsung account, agree to some terms, and potentially even some new permissions. Of course, that seems necessary since Bixby Voice interacts with every aspect of your phone.

Samsung tells us that Bixby Voice is available immediately on the S8 from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and US Cellular.

What is Bixby? Here are the bullet point takeaways that Samsung wants you to know:

• Bixby hears you. Bixby is designed to assist you in completing tasks no matter how you describe them because Bixby will work with you to understand and find the answer or get the task done. Bixby can learn about you and your routine. Using deep learning, Bixby will also improve over time to recognize the different preferences and ways of speaking of a user.
• Bixby helps you. Bixby is fully integrated into native apps and will be integrated into select third-party apps, and makes it easier to find and use their best features. And with Bixby, you can navigate your phone how you like—with voice, touch, or by switching seamlessly between the two.
• Bixby handles it for you. Bixby completes multi-app, complex requests—like grouping pictures from your latest vacation, and sending them to your friends. And if Bixby doesn’t understand a step, it will complete as much of the task as possible, rather than not even starting.

Additionally, Samsung has all sorts of Bixby videos to help get you started. Trust me, you’ll want to watch all you can since Bixby can be a bit overwhelming at times. It’s a powerful voice tool that will take some practice and some getting-used-to.