Bing for Mobile Brings Deals & More to iPhone and Android

Bing brought a new app to market today, which rounds up a collection of new features for iPhone and Android devices.

Inside the new Bing for Mobile app, HTML5 powers the experience, which is also available on m.bing.com on devices like Windows Phone 7, which is not included in this update.

Bing excitedly announced the new HTML5 base of the new app, which will allow the team to add new features without pushing out a full new app. In addition to the new tech powering the Bing app, there are a number of new features which add to the experience.

The new Bing experience may look similar on the web and in the app, but if you plan to use it on a regular basis my testing found that the app delivers a better experience than the web. No big surprise there.

New Bing App features include;

• Maps/List Split View: Provides a dynamic way to synchronize a list such as business listings and directions and a map in a single view making it easy to see the location of what you’re searching for. Also works for driving directions and transit.
• Deals: One-stop deal shopping and convenient mobile phone access for local deals from more than 100 deal providers across the US.
• Video Domain: launched last month on m.bing, the new video domain is now available on iPhone.
• Transit/Real-Time: the Android app now features transit routing/real-time transit and news– all features that were previously only available on m.bing.com

I like the idea of the Local tab for finding place nearby, but it still needs some polish. Every time I tried to find a coffeeshop, the one I was sitting in, the app could find no local deals. When I refreshed the page, it found many local places, but the actual results were pushed off the page by ads for non-local coffee places — one which was at least 2 hours away.

If you like Bing, this is a step in the right direction, but can still use some refinement. Hopefully, the HTML5 background will allow for quick updates, which bring smaller ads on the mobile pages.

You can find Bing for Mobile on the Apple App store and in the Android Market. Bing points Verizon Android users to this special version.

No word on when Windows Phone 7 will get the Bing for Mobile upgrade. It’s interesting to see Bing focus on the competition, but given the smaller marketshare of Windows Phone, Bing’s decision make sense.