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Bing for iPhone 1.0

Bing for iPhone 1.0

Bing’s market share keeps getting bigger (as of this writing, it’s at just above 10 percent), and with the release of an iPhone app, Microsoft’s oddly named search engine is getting serious about expanding their presence on every platform they can.

Bing’s app is the best general search app for the iPhone. It does more inside the app without launching other programs, it adds a new type of image search, and it feels more cohesive. But because it is ultimately a front end to a search engine, and we have not given an Editor’s Choice award for search engines, we can’t declare this (or any search app) our Editor’s Choice. Let’s just say that we really like the desktop version of Bing, and we like this app, too.

For this review, I tested the app on a 32GB iPhone 3GS connected to Wi-Fi. To get the app, visit the iTunes App Store and search for Bing.

UI and Image Search
Bing for iPhone doesn’t offer more functionality than Bing’s WAP site, but it has a much nicer interface. It looks and performs better than the Windows Mobile version of Bing. The iPhone version has six main tabs: Images, Movies, Maps, Businesses, News, and Directions. You can also use the main search bar for regular searches.

Bing’s iPhone app gives almost exactly the same results as you’d find in a desktop search. When you scroll down through a basic search, you see results from the Web, images, businesses, news, and suggestions for other searches.

Some searches give you richer results than others. Much like with Google, when you search for a stock symbol, that business’s stock will show up as the first result. If you tap that first result, it will take you to a MSN Money page with more about the stock and the business. And if you search for a location, a car icon appears next to the first result that you can tap for directions.

Bing’s image search is one of its best features. When you scroll through image results, you never have to change pages—the results just keep coming until there are no more. It is reminiscent of the great browser add-on Cooliris, which lets you scroll through tons of pictures on a 3D wall.

Voice Search, Business Search, and Movies
Bing for iPhone supports voice search, too. You can tap the microphone icon next to the main search bar on the home screen to activate voice search, which listens to your queries and tries to find the best match. I used it with all sorts of names and places and it worked very well.

Business Search is similar to Google’s local search—it gives you a list of related businesses close to your GPS location. If that doesn’t help, you can search through categories of businesses by tapping Businesses on the home screen. The categories include restaurants, nightlife, hotels, transportation, and more.

Tapping on the Movies tab in Bing brings up a list of movies playing nearby. But, when you select an individual flick, movie times are a jumbled mess and it shows you business results that aren’t movie theaters. (Looking at the movie page for Up in the Air brought up business results like Freeze Up Air Conditioning and Clean Air Planet.)

Drawbacks and Conclusions
Bing’s app has a lot to like, but I wanted even more. News here is not as deep as Google News. Bing’s desktop site has a unique “visual search” function that lets you look at pictures of frequently searched-for items. Desktop Bing also lets you search for product prices. You can’t do either of those things here.

Bing goes up against two bigger competitors on the iPhone, Google Mobile and Yahoo. Google’s basic mobile iPhone app (there are separate Google Earth and Maps iPhone apps) does general and voice searches and acts a portal for many other Google services, which launch in a new Safari tab. Yahoo’s search app also connects you via Yahoo Mail and Messenger, but it doesn’t have voice search like Google and Bing. Bing’s rich in-app search results and its better image search experience make it the best of the three, but no mobile app gives you the full richness of the desktop search experience yet.

[Thanks: http://www.pcmag.com]