Bixby may be the forgotten child of virtual assistants, but Samsung is still hoping it can break through and compete with the likes of Siri, Alexa and Cortana. The company has opened its Bixby Marketplace in the US and South Korea, where users can download services to customize their assistant.

The Marketplace offers Bixby apps, which Samsung is calling “capsules”, including Google Maps, Spotify, iHeartRadio, NPR and Yelp. There are also the usual app store features like staff picks, user reviewers and categories to find the app you want. To browse the Marketplace, launch Bixby by pressing the Bixby key, then swipe left.

Samsung is promoting Bixby through its customization feature, where users can set a particular app as their preferred choice for certain voice requests. The example the company gives is if you say, “Get me a ride to San Francisco airport”, you can choose a rideshare app to handle the request and that app will be used by default for ride requests in future.

The development of the Bixby Marketplace could be the prelude to Samsung finally releasing its delayed Galaxy Home smart speaker to challenge the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, but there’s still some way to go before Bixby is ready to control your home.

Source: engadget.com