Bing for Windows Mobile finally gets the a-list treatment and now appears to look and work like the awesome iPhone app. The Bing Community blog has the details:
We’re happy to announce two new features to the Bing app for Windows phones. The first is a redesign to the home page. We changed the navigation to give people faster access to common searches, such as Movies and Traffic.
The second feature is turn-by-turn navigation for Windows 6.x phones, powered by Bing Maps. We took advantage of the Microsoft Tellme team’s expertise in voice applications to deliver an amazingly lifelike voice experience for the turn-by-turn navigation. If you have a Windows phones on Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T you can use the voice guided navigation.
Now when getting directions with Bing, you’ll see a new “Navigate” button. By selecting it, Bing will calculate your route, and guide you as you drive. You can select the fastest or shortest route, choose to avoid traffic and/or tolls, get a map or a list of directions, and see arrows and hear alerts to know which way to turn next.
Presumably this is a preview of what’s coming in Windows Phone 7 as well.
So is there no tun-by-turn with Verizon?
Wait, huh? The way Bing is integrated in to Windows Phone 7 destroys any other OS’s implementation of search (looking at you, Android) and its certainly better than this from a UI perspective.
Not sure how this is a preview for whats to come, as Bing in WP7 already has this functionality built in with a much better, more modern UI. Everythings there expect voice command, which will be supposedly built into WP7.
I just downloaded it in my hd2 and man, I’m impressed. In maps department they can learn a lot from google but overall I love this app. I always wished for an app like flixster or fandango(I have both in my blackberry) in windows Mobile. Movies link on mainscreen is handy and it also finds location faster than before.
But scrolling is still slow without free flow like in iphone(or other parts of HD2). Overall nice additions.
And I’m yet to test voice feature for any improvements – usually google voice feature returns correct entries for my accent(I didn’t grew up in english speaking country) while bing sometimes returns correct entries.
Hello – I was just looking at the T-Mobile HD7. It seems that the Bing implimentation in Windows Phone 7 is short the turn by turn directions. Can you confirm that there is or isn’t turn by turn navigation with Bing for WP7.
Yes.
Bing does not support the “full” turn-by-turn feature set, in the sense that it will not provide you with voice directions for the next turn, etc. This is something Microsoft left open for partners. The most obvious example is AT&T’s excellent Navigator app, which can be purchased on a monthly subscription or per-use.