Although Samsung’s virtual assistant Bixby could be quite useful from time to time, it never did get the love Samsung would’ve hoped for.
Nevertheless, Samsung isn’t giving up and continues with their struggling mission to try and make it lovable by their phone users, and this time by introducing Bixby Marketplace, a dedicated app store where third-party developers can offer their own Bixby-compatible services.
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.
At launch, the marketplace won’t feature “premium capsules,” which is how Samsung refers to paid or subscription apps — but that will be coming further down the line. However, it will support transactional capsules, such as a service like 1-800-Flowers sending flowers to someone on request and charging the order to the user’s card. Today’s launch is just phase one of the Bixby Marketplace — the company said it has “more exciting updates” planned for its Samsung Developer Conference later this year.
The marketplace is now officially open for Samsung customers in the U.S. and South Korea.
Bixby is an intelligence assistant that was first introduced on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in 2017. You can interact with Bixby using your voice, text, or taps. It’s deeply integrated into the phone, meaning that Bixby is able to carry out a lot of the tasks you do on your phone