Microsoft has released a significant update to their Bing for Mobile iPhone app.
From Microsoft’s Bing Blog:
• Streamlined Homepage: The homepage has received a facelift with an enriched layout and design for easier navigation and feature discoverability.
• Find the Perfect Restaurant: Autosuggest got a boost, allowing you to refine searches on the fly. With a tap of the finger, you can easily find the perfect restaurant with the cuisine, price, location and atmosphere you want.
• Search, Find, Decide and Book: Once you’ve decided where you want to go, finalize plans by reserving a table on OpenTable or order takeout from Grubhub – without leaving the Bing app.
• See Before You Go: Familiarize yourself with a location before you go, using Bing Streetside. Streetside, a new mobile mapping feature, provides a multi-street level panorama of a location so you can take a virtual walk through the streets with a view of a locations and landmarks. As you slide the street level imagery sideways, the view of the sidewalk is seamlessly constructed including an overlay of business listings, street names and store fronts.
• Check–In: When you get to your destination, check-in with Bing and simultaneously update your Facebook, Foursquare and Windows Live Messenger status.
• Go Social with your Plans: Looking to plan a last-minute meet-up or happy hour? The new “Plan” feature lets you share local search results directly to your Facebook Wall, and plan a night based on the “likes” and comments of your friends.
• Location-Based Reminders: Forgot to pick up your dry cleaning? Now use the “Reminder” feature that lets you know when you’re close to a location. Set a reminder from the detail business listing page, type a custom message and Bing will remind you the next time you’re near the location.
• Never Miss the Bus: We’ve added a real-time transit updates for Boston, San Francisco and Seattle, so you never miss the bus again (more cities to come). Real-time transit shows if a bus is on schedule, early or delayed, with predictions for arrival times. Standard transit routes for 11 cities are also live including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, and Vancouver BC with more to come.
• Voice Search: Voice search, powered by Microsoft Tellme, is faster than before and allows you to fine-tune your existing search using your voice, without having to repeat the entire search. Tips and hints have also been added, providing helpful information on how best to use voice search to complete tasks.
• See it? Search it!: “Bing Vision” lets you search using your phone’s camera. Bring an object into view and Bing will detect text and present a tool to select words for a search. If the object has a barcode, Bing will instantly return product results. Bing Vision can detect product information from UPC codes and cover art for books, CD, DVDs and video games.
More info and download link via Apple’s iTunes App Store here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
Gosh, I’m all excited now…
I am so excited I could pass wind….
Hey, It sounds like Microsoft might have finally found something it could finally be good at. LOL Give it 3-4 more updates….. and by then they will try to … “monitize it” and down the crapper it will go.
Just a thought,
en
Gizz on my screen
@ ElderNorm
I wouldn’t be surprised if the monetization is ad-based to take on Google.
The only thing I don’t like with Bing on the iphone is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to have it default to the desktop version. I hate that the mobile version only displays the first two links and theny ou have to click another link to get the full list
I use Scroogle.org’s “Scroogle Scraper” to get around Eric T. Mole and his spies.
So now they want to make decisions for me?
That is really what I want, M$ making my decisions.
As long as Bing serves as a propaganda tool for MS, I won’t use it.
Perform these two searches-Once on Google and then on Bing
1) Is Google Evil and
2) How many viruses exist for Microsoft Windows.
Google will return every article about “Google Evilness” and MS viruses, yet according to Bing, there isn’t a Windows virus in existence.
Yes, Bing decides for you, and I don’t like that. You shouldn’t, either
Yawn. Yawnerific. Yawn Fest. Yawnster. Yawneroso.
Did I mention I wasn’t interested?
@Moo. I am no lover of MS but I did your search. Bing actually showed MORE hits on the virus question. And the top ones matched Google. You should really check these things before making stuff up.
I think Bing has all of the same problems the commercials for it tell us that google has. Way to much nonsense that is unrelated to the actual search.
Maybe it’s time for a new search engine to arise
I must be complete out of the flow of things. This looks like the most useless product ever. I can’t imagine needing any of these serves. (But then, I live in a small town and know where everything is.) Big city people must need this kind of service.
Clearly just an attempt to keep more people on the Bing site when all these services already exist elsewhere. Are people too lazy to visit other websites outside their own little AOL-style walled garden?
– Streamlined Homepage: constant struggle for Microsoft to actually show and describe features in a logical manner. At least MS realizes that it never gets it right the first time around.
– Find the Perfect Restaurant: for people who can’t ask a local. If you really need the perfect restaurant, we shall see if brainless, inhuman Bing can touch a candle to Zagat or any of a dozen other expert-edited guides written by real people
– Search, Find, Decide and Book: …why more search complication? OpenTable has a website, or you can actually talk to the host at the restaurant, like a person with a semblance of a personality would do.
– See Before You Go: Familiarize yourself with a Google rip-off of questionable taste. Sure, it’s a free country, you can take pictures of my house from the street. But a polite person would ask permission first. Some of us merely need the address to get where we need to be.
– Check–In: When you get to your destination, tell all would-be house bandits that you’re not home!
– Go Social with your Plans: Looking to plan a last-minute meet-up or happy hour but not actually friendly enough to ask anyone in person? You can try this as if people with actual lives are ready to change their plans based on a posting from someone too short-sighted to give an advance notice.
– Location-Based Reminders: Forgot to pick up your dry cleaning? Use a calendar next time. This has absolutely nothing to do with searching or deciding. Might be nice for creepy parents to retrace the destinations of their wayward children, but it’s no substitute for being a responsible thinking person.
– Never Miss the Bus: We’ve added a real-time transit updates could actually be useful in cities with tolerable mass transit … but only for those people who don’t already have the local transit site bookmarked or in a widget.
– Voice Search: Voice search is a great tool for those people without fingers or those who want to lose them by annoying all those around themselves.
– See it? Search it!: “Bing Vision” lets you discover that all brick-and-mortar retailers must charge enough to cover overhead and service. UPC comparisons are great for commodities like books, where everyone knows the best price is online already, with a gazillion price-matching sites to help the cheapskate. When all the good small local stores with helpful customer service are gone, don’t be surprised.
Count me unimpressed.
Why has AltaVista been forgotten?
I use Bing more and more. Only when Bing can’t find what I want I use Google. Google is still the leader by a wide margin when it comes to the quality of the results but Bing is getting better but Microsoft really needs to push billions into this to get closer to Google’s level.