Bing’s iPhone App Looks Good
Bing “ Microsoft ‘s web search engine “ now has an iPhone app, that ‘s just hit the App Store this week.
I ‘m not expert enough at looking at search results to make any sort of comparison between Bing and Google ‘s iPhone apps “ but I can say that Bing ‘s new app is pretty to look at and seems to work quite well for me so far.
I like the UI of this app quite a lot. From the start page you can search directly via text input or voice. It ‘s voice recognition seems good, but perhaps not as strong as Google Mobile ‘s. The ‘image overlay ‘ on the main page, with little factoids about the daily background images, is a nice little touch.
You can also tap the ‘sections ‘ button in its bottom bar to quickly switch to more focused views “ with the sections on offer being: Images, Movies, Maps, Business, News, and Directions.
I ‘ve never tried out Bing online before, but had always heard that its image search results were impressive “ this comes across in the iPhone app.
I found the Maps section pinned down my location perfectly accurately right away. The Directions feature works nicely, and the Movies area quickly offered up a good listing of what ‘s playing near me.
I like the Bing app. It won ‘t replace Google Mobile, but it ‘s plenty good enough to keep around as an extra option.
For a more detailed rundown on Bing for the iPhone, I recommend a good review post by my friend Corvida over at her SheGeeks site, HERE.
You can find Bing in the App Store now, and it ‘s a free app.
I'm rather impressed with Bing, and I've been using it MORE than Safari lately.
Cool – what things are you liking about it?
Well, as an example, yesterday I was messing around with it, and did a search for my girlfriends name and a few other contacts that I have. And I was amazed that it had lots of results, and that they were acurate, i.e age, location, etc etc. In addition, it was fast, too! Even just now, I wanted to know the Avatar showing times at the cinema near my house. I did NOT select a field, I just entered Avatar in the search box at the top of the screen, and it brough up the cinema across the street (2 minutes away, literally) with the times etc. Needless to say, I'll be at the cinema on Sunday at 11:15 – I'm just saying
Very good stuff. I'm glad to have it around.
I like Bing App for Showtimes and its fast smooth image search. The direction description is smarter than native app (e.g., if you see BP on the left you went too far). I was hoping so see turn-by-turn automated directions like the Live app for Windows Mobile 6 on my old Sprint Touch. I am not sure, but it might moves Maps off my first home screen, which is a big statement for me.
Cool – that is high praise if it takes the place of the Maps app on the first home screen.
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