Think about it. They bought VIV, which was by all accounts English-only, and restarted from the ground up to make it Korean-capable. (We don’t know if they’ve made it Korean-first, which would be a mistake.) That it’s delayed for English doesn’t make it bad, it actually makes it a better product, because it will have been planned for internationalization from the start this time.

A lot of people talk about Siri’s having been crippled when it was purchased by Apple – but they took it back to basics and focused on localisation. Where Siri fails in this is that Apple have overlooked that people are bilingual, and may want to speak, or be spoken to, in either language. Siri can only recognize and speak in the second language if the primary interface of the device has been set to that language. They are making progress, in that they understand if you have a second language set via keyboard to understand mixing languages in the same sentence now.

The same is true for Alexa. Amazon have had to adapt for German localisation, which will pay dividends when they turn on for other countries.

“English first” appeals to a certain type of voter, but products have to ship worldwide, and they have to be designed with that as a requirement.

“this bit is rubbish” is really, this bit is delayed, and no one likes delays. If they can’t ship an update that sorts it out, then it will have been rubbish.

The voice aspect is delayed because it cant understand English. This is AI 101. If Bixby cant do this, the outlook for it being able to do anything else is very poor indeed.

The rest of it is already there and it is totally useless. In my mind that is failure.

I am not saying that the s8 will be a failure, quite the reverse as it is an excellent product, but this bit is rubbish.