Make decisions and get where you need to go with Bing. See the Bing daily image and related trivia on the home screen. Search maps or the web with our voice – even say an address. Use Image Search and flick through previews Download Bing today to find stuff nearby and get there fast.
MacDailyNews Note: The missing “y” and period in Microsoft’s Bing description above is brought to you by Microsoft’s legendary attention-to-detail.
More info, screenshots, and download link via Apple’s iTunes App Store here.
MacDailyNews Take: Mediocresoft might have forgotten a letter here and a bit of punctuation there, but it looks like they remembered to astroturf the so-called “Customer Reviews” for the app’s debut (a little carpet-bombing to soften up the target, you know) on Apple’s App Store. Apple, fix your “Customer Reviews” concept – it’s broken, useless, and a waste of space.
Ex-Microsoft employee remembers the last sound he heard at Microsoft: Bing!
I just chose “Report a Concern” on a reviewer that seemed particularly fake for Bing. Right after that, all the reviews for Bing disappeared. It still has its 5-star rating, but all the reviews are gone (at least on my copy of iTunes). Perhaps Apple is investigating? I’m guessing they don’t kick Microsoft out, but handle it quietly.
MacSmiley sez: “…MSFT must be doing something right with the “decision engine”. “
Something Right = Throw money at advertising Bing. I believe the budget size was something like $300 Million. Please correct me if I am in error.
My expectation: Stop the ads, kill the Bing market share. Essentially they are getting Bing a lot of attention via advertising. Whether anyone actually likes it is another question. This is what Microsoft typically do when they release a new product.
In the case of the Zune, by the end of the first year they were dumping product on the market at less than half price. Microsoft bought their way into the MP3 player market and failed.
In the case of the XBox 360, what sold the box was the games. Meanwhile the repair rate for the boxes was OVER 50%, which is outrageous. This is one reason why Microsoft have never made a profit on XBox 360 boxes. Their profit has been the games. Microsoft bought their way into the games market and succeeded.
m159 sez: “Now we have a choice of two different search apps made by aspiring monopolists whose only idea of R&D;is to copy Apple.”
In this case, I don’t see the Apple R&D;copying point flying. Apple don’t do search engines. Well, except for Sherlock (which is dead) and Spotlight (which sucked until Snow Leopard and it doesn’t do Internet).
Google’s search engine is the jewel in their crown. It is a stroke of genius and imitates no one. Every other search engine wants to imitate Google, including Minisofty.
As for both being monopolists: *BOING*
Oops I meant: *DING*
Personally, I still regularly use the MetaCrawler.com search engine. It was the first great idea in search engines and is still a good idea: Why use one search engine when you can use all of them?