Microsoft's Bing mobile app ships for iPhone, Android -- not Windows Phone

02.11.2011
has rolled out a new mobile app for Bing built with HTML5 and available first only to and users, not to Phone users. It may be another indication that Microsoft is turning its attention away from its home-baked development platforms .Net and Silverlight and toward the industry-standard HTML5.

Because a version of Bing is already integrated with Windows Phone 7, the new Bing HTML5 app at first is available to iPhone and Android users only, with BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 versions to follow at an unspecified later date. Internet Explorer 9 with support for HTML5 is one of the features touted with Windows Phone 7.5, the Mango release.

BLOG:

"The functionality of the app is based on HTML5 and currently only works on iPhone and Android phones. We're working to release a new Bing app for Windows Phone 7 devices in the future," a Microsoft spokesperson told Network World.

The new HTML5-based app, Bing for Mobile, brings the Bing search engine to mobile phones. It also includes features like Maps with a List/Split view, real-time transit information, a search history and a "deals" feature. The deals feature aggregates information from coupon sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and Tippr.

To be fair, Bing did get an overhaul with Windows Phone 7.5, and added features like voice searching, music search and camera/photo-based searching (Bing recognizes the text or the barcode).