Samsung Electronics today unveiled Samsung developer tools for its Bixby and SmartThings platforms, as well as “mobile experiences” with One UI and Infinity Flex Display. The announcements were made at the Samsung Developers Conference (SDC 2018) in San Francisco, USA.
To make connected living a reality, Samsung said it was “making it easier” for developers and partners “to quickly build, launch and scale new experiences to millions of devices around the world.”
D J Koh, President and CEO of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics, said the company had “achieved significant advancements in AI and IoT, which will be crucial to bringing our connected living vision to life.”
The progress made to Bixby and SmartThings on the Samsung developer tools front opens a new chapter where third party products and services can be integrated to the AI and IoT platforms at scale.
Building a Scalable Intelligence Platform
Samsung pointed out in the announcement that Bixby had started off “as an intelligent interface”, a practical way to use voice to interact with a phone. Now, Samsung was changing it into a scalable intelligence platform to support the diverse products and services in a consumer’s life.
To make it easier for developers to scale services powered by Bixby, Samsung was introducing the Bixby Developer Studio, a collection of tools to infuse intelligence into more services and devices. Developers will be able to easily create Bixby Capsules – features or services created for Bixby – and make them easily accessible to consumers in the Bixby Marketplace.
As part of its efforts to scale Bixby services, Samsung was expanding support to five new languages in the coming months, including British English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Delivering a Connected Lifestyle for Everyone
Samsung’s connected living vision was centered around an open IoT ecosystem that united the growing number of connected devices on a single platform. Available in more than 200 markets around the world, SmartThings delivers a connected experience in a single app, bringing IoT beyond the smart home, into the car, office and everywhere in-between.
Samsung said it was “now making it faster and easier” for developers to connect their devices and services to the SmartThings platform with a new suite of tools in the redesigned ‘SmartThings Developer Workspace’. These enhanced tools included SmartThings Cloud Connector, SmartThings Device Kit and SmartThings Hub Connector. Developers can build and launch on the platform, as well as easily integrate Cloud-connected, Zigbee and Z-Wave devices.
Pioneering User Experience and Display Innovation
Samsung has also introduced an interface design called One UI. Its minimalistic design keeps the most relevant Content on the bottom half of the screen – making it more natural and comfortable for one-handed use. The experience was re-engineered to reduce clutter and distractions, allowing the user to better focus and quickly navigate their phone, said Samsung.
Image Credit: Samsung