Last we heard the Bing for iPhone app was at about 4.3 million downloads (should be significantly more than that by now, is there a way to track iPhone app downloads?), and based on that success it looks like Bing is branching out in the iPhone App world. A blog post on the Bing Search blog points out a number of Bing powered iPhone Apps, some of which they’re offering for free for a limited time. Interesting that these apps, developed in partnership with 3rd parties like NuTsie and Blackdot, continue to blur the lines between Search Engine and App, offering up the likes of a Top 100 Songs app:
and the proverbial Chicktionary:
somewhat obscuring the fact that each play is conducting a Bing Search, which is seemingly great for search market share numbers but is it really “search”? (And even if Bing is a “Decision Engine”, we’re not sure we want to know what Chicktionary is helping us decide!)
While we’re on the subject of Bing, a couple of more quick notes: our friends John O’Brien and Bronwen Zande are presenting at Tech Ed Australia 2010 on the Gold Coast, their session is called “Showcase your ideas on Bing Maps”, and finally, although this is about a month old apparently I only saw it last night for the first time while watching the Seattle Seahawks pre-season game (yay! football season!):
