Microsoft has been making good strides with Bing and they have just released a fantastic iPhone app.
I have had Google Mobile iPhone app front and center in my home page since day 1 of getting my iPhone. Now, it has a worthy competitor in the Bing iPhone app.
Bing loads with a random image on startup with a nicely done transparent layout that offers 6 options – Images, Movies, Directions, Businesses, News and Directions.
At the top of the start screen is the search box. Search results bring up web search, image results as well as news results.
Voice Search
This is a feature I use often in Google Mobile app and glad to see it in Bing too. It worked pretty decent indoors but I haven’t tried it in my car while driving yet.
Image Search
Image search screen default brings up clusters of pictures for what I think are the popular search phrases at the moment. You can browse those in full screen mode or search for your terms.
Movies
Bing uses your location to show movies near you. It just lists the movies and you need to tap on the movie to see the locations and the timings. One nice thing is under the movie timings it has a list of web results for the movie, news and image search. Would have been great to see movie review site listings here instead.
Businesses
This section brings up a list of common business categories and you can select it to view the businesses around your location. Every listing has a car and phone icon and you can tap it to either get driving directions or call the business.
News
The news section also has the popular categories with rather a long excerpt than the traditional very short teasers under the headlines. This means you get to see fewer headlines without hitting more under a section.
Directions
This totally took me by surprise after using Google Maps for ages in iPhone. Bing Maps is really snappy and a joy to use. It quickly found my current location and generated the direction. The top of the map has toggles to switch to fastest route, shortest route or walking directions. It also has a traffic light icon and on tapping it shows estimated time of travel with traffic.
It also has a step by step direction that overlays on the map. Just hit Go and it takes you through every turn by turn without the voice prompt. You could also choose to toggle Map, Satellite, Terrain, or Hybrid views as well as toggle Traffic views.
Overall, Microsoft has delivered a surprisingly fast and intuitive search app for iPhone that has won my heart over. I am going to keep it alongside Google Mobile app and see which one I tend to gravitate more in the coming weeks.
Rating: [starreview tpl=16]
Availability: App Store [iTunes link]
Price: FREE
