Today Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus and Galaxy S21 Ultra (I take the brown Zune-inspired thanks). This happens a few months earlier than usual for the S-series phones, but otherwise the text remains the same.
Here is the text. Samsung will be the first major Android manufacturer with Qualcomm’s latest chips, this time with the Snapdragon 888. Samsung will use its insignificantly large marketing budget and long-term service providers to ensure that it is seen as the standard option if you have a premium Android phone – especially if you make the purchase in a US service provider store.
Other parts of the text are not necessarily guaranteed, but are a safe bet. These are likely to be excellent phones, well balanced and capable. Samsung claims big camera that needs rigorous testing to verify. And of course, the ever-swinging pendulum of Samsung’s OneUI software will continue its current arc of overloading.
The last part of the text reminds me of one of the most important characters in it: Bixby. Samsung’s digital assistant was introduced in 2017 with the Galaxy S8. It was still a digital assistant, but as Dan Seifert wrote at the time, it had a very clear and very good job of distinguishing it from Alexa, Siri and Google. Samsung did not try to make Bixby into a general purpose. It has focus:
Samsung knows that it can not compete with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others when it comes to the power of machine learning and putting large amounts of information at your fingertips, so use Bixby to solve a simpler task, which the companies largely has. ignored. Bixby is not going to try to be the all-assistant. Instead, it will be that ‘bright sidekick’ that complements the other services. This is a new user interface, not a new way of asking how high the Eiffel Tower is.
Bixby would be an interface, not an assistant. Was it really a viable strategy? Who knows! Certainly not Samsung, which has done very quickly what Samsung tends to do with software: give in to feature crawling. Over the past few years, Bixby has changed into the thing it originally designed not to be: a worse version of the Google Assistant.
Samsung tried to push Bixby. It created a dedicated button for it. It later dropped the button, but assigned a long press on the on / off button. It built up Bixby routines (related to Bixby’s original purpose). But then it associated Bixby with a chunk of content that was to the left of the home screen. And it announced independent smart Bixby speakers that were never really shipped.
On The Vergecast we have a running joke that Bixby is a dog who wears shoes and is also a butler. It is benevolent and eager to please, but in the end stumbles a lot and does not do very good work of serving drinks or answering the door because it is a dog wearing shoes.
Speaking of shoes, put yourself in that of Samsung. Why does it continue to develop Bixby? I can only think of two reasons, one good and one bad.
The good reason: a fence against Google and Android. It’s always possible that Google could do something horrible and that Samsung wants to bail without Google’s services (or even Android itself). It’s not a terrible idea to let your own digital assistant penetrate just in case. If nothing else, it could be a sign to Google that Samsung is in fact willing to just walk away and do Tizen and Bixby in certain negotiations.
That’s the good reason – or at least as close to a good reason as I can think of – but I do not know if that is 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 a short example of an end-to-end ecosystem where your users live and breathe your services, thus being locked into your products. If you are going to have a holistic, comprehensive ecosystem, you need to cover all the basics, and so on: Bixby.
And also: your own fitness service. And your own health program and ecosystem of compounds. Your own family of Bluetooth headphones. Your own tracker tag (before Apple even announces its tracker tag). Your own tablets. Your own music service. Your own news service. And so on.
All of these things are what Samsung is now trying or actively trying to do. Some of them are really successful! Samsung’s Galaxy Buds series today consist of three different earbuds, each with its own obvious reason for being and each pretty good (if you assume the new Galaxy Buds Pro does not beat).
Samsung has always had aspirations to build an entire world (or, er, Galaxy) for its users to live in, just like Apple. What’s frustrating is that Samsung is very good with so many things, and if it wants to be a little more inclined in these things, it could point to a more innovative and interesting way.
Take Samsung DeX, for just one example. This is the thing that allows you to connect your phone to a larger screen, such as a TV or monitor, and get a complete desktop interface. It’s really cool, but I suspect it’s more of a tech demo than a frequently used feature. But the Snapdragon 888 that will be in these S21 phones will in many ways be just as powerful as the chips that will work on the arm-based Windows laptops this year.
There’s an untapped potential with DeX that Apple could not match for years if Samsung could figure it out. Instead, it makes an effort to get Tile-esque tracking tags out the door before Apple can do it.
If Samsung wants to focus a little more on where it’s already ahead and a little less on where it’s behind, it’s deliver a lot more exciting products.
That’s why I call it: I had it with Bixby. If Samsung can’t sniff it out 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 re-map the on / off button to the Google Assistant (without the need for third-party hacks).
There’s a little spark of hope. Jimmy is Promo’s leak of the new version of Samsung’s OneUI version of Android, and shows that users can choose between the Google feed or Samsung Free feed on their home screens.
Samsung’s user interface on top of Android swung like a pendulum between two poles. It gets overloaded with features and strange user interface for a few years, and then the pendulum hangs there at the end of its arc before moving back to a cleaner, simpler user interface. It’s time for the pendulum to swing back. And that means it’s time to let Bixby go.
The latest from CES
Are all these technical CES announcements or are some of them simply CES adjacent? When CES is all virtual, is it then an event where things happen or simply a state of mind, a state of mind? Do I use jokes about philosophical torments as a smokescreen to disguise my inability to determine whether or not these things are technically part of CES?
Sometimes questions have no answers. All we can really know in this world is that laser projectors are still very cool.
┏ Asus’s slats distribute movies instead of coffee and milk. I have an Anchor / Nebula version of one of these mini projector / speaker things, and it’s one of the best things I put in my suitcase when I travel (there, when I traveled). You really need a dark room to be good, but you will be surprised how much more comfortable it is to just plug an HDMI cable into the projector than it does with the TV. hotel of Airbnb. I might be interested in switching to this later, as the Nebula version of Android TV is old, buggy and poorly supported.
┏ LG’s latest 4K laser projector supports AirPlay 2 for $ 2,999.
┏ LG’s new range of gaming monitors includes 4K / 144Hz panel with HDMI 2.1.
┏ But wait, Asus has even more game monitors equipped with HDMI 2.1 ports.
┏ Asus’ new Chromebook CX9 offers military durability.
┏ Asus’ 2021 laptop includes two new dual-screen ZenBooks. A new member joins the Keyboard In The Front Club!
If you are new to the ZenBook Duo series, the laptops have a primary screen (the regular) as well as a secondary screen (the ScreenPad Plus) built into the top half of the keyboard deck. It’s not really big enough to do anything, but you can upload your distractions (Twitter, disagreement, etc.) to keep it out of your main workspace. Some applications, including Adobe’s, also offer ScreenPad-specific interfaces.
┏ MSI’s 2021 Laptops Get Nvidia’s RTX 3000 Series Mobile Graphics Cards and Wi-Fi 6E Support. Monica Chin
MSI unveiled its early 2021 series of laptops at CES on Wednesday. The big news is that all the new versions are equipped with Nvidia’s brand new graphics cards from the GeForce RTX 3000 series. In addition to improved frame rates and beam tracking, these chips will deliver the latest features from Nvidia, including the size of BAR technology. They also get support for Wi-Fi 6E.
┏ MSI’s new Creator 15 is led with RTX 3000 graphics. Monica Chin
The Creator 15 is just the latest version of gaming and creator-oriented laptops using Nvidia’s new RTX 3000 graphics, following its release at CES 2021. These laptops use the third generation of Nvidia’s Max-Q design, which is designed for laptops with thin games and content. The new GPUs also feature a new Dynamic Boost 2.0 technology that uses AI to balance power between CPU, GPU and GPU memory.
┏ MSI’s new GE76 Raider Dragon Edition Tiamat is a tribute to an ancient goddess. 10-year-old me who played the 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons would have lost it if he had known one day that there would be a computer with a Tiamat theme.
┏ The best technology of CES 2020: where are they now?
More from The edge
┏ Chill imbibes: within the thriving business of soft drinks. Great feature of Liz Lopatto. I saw ads for these drinks everywhere and wondered what the deal really was. Here is the answer.
┏ Apple’s first major race investments include a Detroit Developer Center and an HBCU Technology Center.
┏ Intel replaces CEO next month.
┏ Ring add end-to-end encryption to protect your video streams.
┏ Google says solution to Android coronavirus detection delays is on the way.
┏ Nvidia and AMD address the huge shortage of GPUs.