Microsoft's new Bing iPhone app |
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Microsoft's new Bing iPhone app
It doesn't get much more pragmatic than this. Microsoft tonight introduced a Bing app for iPhone -- implicitly acknowledging the importance of Apple's rival device in its quest to grab market share from Google.
The free app debuted tonight (iTunes link) and it was probably inevitable. Microsoft already offers Bing apps for Windows phones, BlackBerry, Sidekick and some Verizon Wireless BREW-based phones. And the iPhone has just gotten to big even for Steve Ballmer & Co. to ignore. Will be very interesting to see if Bing for Google Android is coming at some point down the road.
Features of the new search app are detailed in this Bing blog post. They include voice search, maps, driving directions, and a "locate me" feature. Google's voice search for the iPhone is pretty darn good in my experience, so it should be fun to see how the two technologies compare on the device.
And as with the Bing web home page, the home page of the Bing iPhone app will show a different image every day with clickable, embedded hotspots. A Microsoft representative confirms via email that the app home page will, in fact, show the same image as the Bing web home page every day. Will be interesting to see how they pull that off, given the different screen sizes.
Earlier today, new numbers from comScore Networks showed Microsoft's search engine topping 10 percent market share in the United States for the first time in more than two years. However, that growth came primarily at the expense of Yahoo, rather than Google, which saw its market share grow slightly larger, to 65.6 percent.
Meanwhile, the Redmond company has seen its momentum in smartphones wane in recent years, as first the iPhone and now Google Android devices captured the attention of the consumer market. Windows Mobile 7, which Ballmer has called critical to regain traction, isn't due out until sometime next year.
Here's a screenshot of the home page on that Bing app. If anyone else gets a chance to try it out before I do, please feel free to offer your impressions in the comments.
(For the record, this is not Microsoft's first iPhone app. That honor belongs to Seadragon Mobile, released a year ago.)
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