Last year, the Galaxy S8 got Bixby, the company’s revamped virtual assistant over S-Voice. This year, the Galaxy S9 is reportedly to come with the company’s own social network called “Uhhsup”, which will apparently compete with established social media platforms out there. As reported by Android Community via HeraldCorp, the service will have features such as sharing real-time location as well as sending messages, though it is unknown if the latter feature would work with non-Samsung smartphones, we did also report back then that the Galaxy S9 would come with 3D emojis, Apple’s Animoji competitor, so Uhhsup might be the service taking advantage of the feature.
This isn’t the first time Samsung has experimented with a social messaging app, as the company used to have ChatOn pre-installed on its phones a long time ago, which was discontinued due to the lack of users and increased demand of WhatsApp and Viber. HeraldCorp also reports that the company has also trademarked “Samsung Social” for the service’s name in the Korean Market, while Uhhsup is registered with the EU Intellectual Property Office.
It is unclear what Samsung’s motive is behind Uhhsup, or Samsung Social, but if this feature were to be released exclusively for the Galaxy S9 or recent Samsung flagships, the company is sure to have a hard time to even compete with Apple’s iMessage and Animojis, but let’s hope this doesn’t become the next Bixby when it unveils on February 25.