Samsung allegedly ending support for Bixby Voice on some devices in January

Ben Schoon | Nov 26 2019 - 1:15 pm PT

Despite a lack of praise, Samsung’s Bixby has expanded to quite a lot of the company’s Android smartphones. Now, it appears that some devices may lose access to Bixby Voice as Samsung reportedly ends support for older Android versions.

According to a report from SamMobile, Bixby Voice support may no longer include two older Android versions. Apparently, Samsung is planning to end support for Voice on both Android Nougat and Android Oreo.

At this point, Samsung has already upgraded a good portion of its devices to Pie, and Android 10 is right around the corner, too. Still, some customers opt to stay on older versions, don’t know how to update, or have devices stuck on these older versions of the platform. Thankfully, this doesn’t appear to be affecting all devices on these older platforms.

SamMobile says that the Galaxy S9 and S9+, S8, S8+, and S8 Active, as well as the Galaxy Note 8 and A9 2018, would be the only devices affected. Android Pie is already available for all of these models, so as long as users update before January 1, 2020, they’ll retain access to Bixby Voice. Apparently, the decision to block the older version is to push users toward the upgraded Bixby Voice that debuted on the Note 9.