One of the features from Bing that I praise most often is its intuitive, mobile-optimized apps for Android, iOS, and (of course)WP7. But for those who have a mobile phone that either doesn’t support these apps or that you don’t want to download the apponto, Bing has a solution: a new version of Bing’s default mobile version that includes a variety of the site’s most important features.
This updated mobile version can be found at m.bing.com, and is accessible from any smartphone that is HTML 5–capable (every version of the iPhone, Android 2.0+ systems, and RIM 6.0+ systems). Here’s a quick breakdown of the important features:
- The Bing daily image will be displayed.
- Users will receive region-specific home page information.
- Image search is enabled.
- Autosuggestions and recent search item suggestions are now enabled.
- Bing Maps has been optimized for a split view that shows the map and directions on the same screen.
- Bing Maps has added seamless image updates when you scroll to new areas of the map.
- A “Share on Facebook” option has been added to many pages, including restaurant pages, images, and more.
Several of these feature updates also foreshadow the “deeply integrated” Bing experience of the Windows Phone 7. WP7 will be updated later this year with the next version of the OS, titled Mango. In addition to expected security and user experience updates, Mango will be adding “quick cards” that give a brief rundown of select Bing-stored items (restaurants, local businesses, Bing Shopping products, etc.), a “local scout” option that gives “hyper-local” results, and specialized Bing searches (including visual search, music search, and voice search).
[Sources include: The Bing Blog]
