The Live Search mobile application, although as crippled it is outside of the United States, is still a very cool mobile search application that featured intelligent voice search and location-based search capabilities only recently Google could match on the iPhone Google app. Now that Bing has taken over Live Search, a the mobile application is said to be coming “very soon”. Here’s a couple details about it I picked up from a Microsoft presentation.
The new Bing mobile application appears to be a little more than just a simple rebranding of the old Live Search application. For starters, the client is expanding beyond just Windows Mobile and Blackberry to include the Sidekick and BREW-supported phones, where it is said to ship natively on all Verizon BREW phones starting November. Furthermore, the service will also expand to the European market with local content available for the UK, France and Italy. All of this was initially planned to launch between August and September, which may or has not changed.
The design of the application is also likely to be changed to incorporate some of the new design elements from Bing. Here are a couple screen concepts from late April this year.
cool. maybe i’ll try it, since it’ll be in BREW.. the only thing my crappy japanese phone will use. i’d rather use google, but none of their apps and such work well on my phone.
Looks very cool! But of course, it won’t support anyone outside of the US.
Lovely. i also agree that the biggest problem with Bing is now coverage.
How many Countries besides U.S.A and Canada got a full edition of Bing.com?
They should seriously concentrate in offering the full experience in the top 30 Countries (markets) as fast as possible. that is the only way to capture marketshare from Google faster.
Could this finally be a refresh? Could they have added standard features that Google Maps has?
“Google Maps Mobile 3.0 for Windows Mobile, or what Live Search Mobile forgot to do, again.”
Read: http://digg.com/u16Nzz
I sure hope so.
It will not look that good. It just can’t.
I see a lot of positive blog entries about Bing this morning. Looks like the last batch of checks from Microsoft’s Marketing dept. has cleared.
The Mobile Live Search feature just irritated me. Everything I searched did NOT end up in RSA (South Africa)
Everything was USA this, USA that. and it’s not even FULLY USA!
Google doesn’t even do a very good job (yet) with services like these, although the Google MAPS is really good.
Service providers here in south africa have been embracing new technology really quickly. – Although I use HTC, there’s still little support available.
The HTC’s WindowsM 6.0 for Touch is/was useless I still use the phone, but it died, I’ve sent it in for repairs. I also hate how firmware updates are region locked! Nokia’s aren’t!
These preview interfaces seem pretty mock to me. The ‘3D’ visualisation will never look as good in WM software.
Take this one from me!
Brandon – actually it is very possible on Windows Mobile to make applications look good. It’s kind of unfortunate that it’s taken Microsoft so long to realise what it can do on its own platform.
Allen – Unfortunately I completely hear you about the HTC devices. After a train of very good devices the most recent batch from HTC (I am suffering the Touch Pro atm) are just junk and are best used as a (expensive) paperweight. The worse thing about this is that it detracts from the WM brand and will deter users from considering WM devices in the future. Personally I think that with the advent of WM6.5 there will be a swag of new and super cool devices that hit the market.
@Nick
As an owner of a HTC Touch Diamond2, I disagree. HTC’s latest phones are definately their best ever – however, I do wish they had faster processors and flashes for their cameras. I’m looking forward to WM6.5 too, and I’ll get a free copy of it for my Diamond2 when HTC gets around to it.
@Alien
Check out xda-developers. They have a tool that removes the firmware region locking. Works great and even lets you load custom firmware.
@mrmckeb – you make a good point there. I think that HTC got such a hard time about the Diamond and Touch Pro devices (I don’t know anyone who has had a positive experience with these devices) that they put a considerable amount of work into the 2 series. afaik these will also be upgradable to WM6.5 when it ships. In terms of older HTC devices the stuff from xda-developers is definitely the way to go – it almost makes the device usable. I would recommend the clean builds that get rid of the junk that HTC adds (again the new version of their interface is probably quite usable/good). I wish the HTC would show some love back to people who have invested in their devices though!!!
@Nick
I agree. Windows Mobile in general needs to get into the spirit of not screwing over older customers. If Windows can have service packs and millions of updates, why not Windows Mobile? It sucks that new features normally mean buying a new device (or installing hacked firmware).
How new can these concepts be if they’re still branded as Kumo and not Bing?
We may see this app in Zune HD
It looks cool but it needs to be released globally.
Hey guys, thanks for the reply!
The HTC touch was one of HTC’s first WM6.0 phones, That’s why there’s so many ‘mistakes’
@mrmckeb: thanks so much for the XDA-developers, I will definitely check that out!
@Nick: But the new HTCs are amazing. I mean. look at Dream (although off topic a bit)
I need to get that WM6.5 update for my phone!
@YetAnothrPC: Windows Live Messenger used to be called MSN Messenger… right?
@Allen Huang: I don’t see your point. Windows Live Messenger is now much more advanced than MSN Messenger used to be. So if anything, you’re only proving my point, no? I’m sure Bing is better than Kumo was, if only by a little bit. And besides, I was only stating that these concepts must be a little old.
Thanks for the information on the new bing mobile apps. This looks very interesting and innovative. I will definitely give it a try on my windows mobile phones as soon as I can.