Samsung now has an App Store for Bixby and it battles Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa

In an effort to compete with artificially intelligent (AI) assistants including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, Samsung has launched its own Bixby app store called Bixby Marketplace, which will allow Galaxy users to browse and download shortcuts with ease using the Bixby virtual assistant. After announcing back in November in 2018 to release of Bixby Developer Studio, Samsung has finally revealed its new Bixby app store. The app portal will be currently launched in the United States and South Korea, while there’s no news on when it’ll launch in the other countries.

Samsung said, the Bixby Marketplace takes these customized experiences to the next level by offering easy access to a wide range of capsules that make Bixby more powerful, making it easier for users to tailor Bixby to suit their needs. The new Bixby Marketplace features high-profile portals for Google Maps, Spotify, iHeartRadio, NPR, and Yelp, among others.


As per Samsung’s statement, the Galaxy users will be able to search the portal for so-called capsules, which are organized by categories such as productivity, finance, sports, and shopping. The company is also allowing users to set preferred capsules. 

Giving an example, the company said, if a user says Get me a ride to San Francisco airport, Bixby will prompt the user to pick one of the supported Rideshare capsules. Users will have the option to set their favorite provider as their preferred Rideshare capsule. Once that is set, any Rideshare request would automatically go to the user’s preferred provider, even if the user does not mention the capsule name.

While Samsung has launched the Bixby Marketplace to compete with Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, it might be tough for the company to reach the level soon, given the competition in the market and the app’s performance.