Slash Lane
Bing arrives on iPhone
The Redmond, Wash., software giant announced the new application's release on its Bing blog. Much like the browser-based Bing.com, the application shows the image of the day and clickable hotspots that include trivia.
It offers search of images, movies, maps, businesses, news and directions. Users can even check their flight status on the go.
"Make decisions and get where you need to go with Bing," the official description reads. "See the Bing daily image and related trivia on the home screen. Search maps or the Web with your voice — even say an address. Use Image Search and flick through previews. Download Bing today to find stuff nearby and get there fast."
Initial response to the Bing application has been positive, as 191 of 247 reviewers have given the software five stars. It has an overall score of 4 and a half stars.
The free application (iTunes link) is a 1.9MB download that requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.
Bing is the third application on the iPhone and iPod touch from Apple's rival to the north. Its previous releases are Tag Reader, an application that reads barcode-like Microsoft Tags, and Seadragon, which allows easy zooming and panning of large images.
Microsoft has tried for years to gain a strong presence in the online search business. The market is currently dominated by Google, which has its own iPhone application: Google Mobile. Last year, the software was updated to allow its own voice searches.
RedLaser's App Store success story
Occipital, a development team with just two employees, has managed to earn more than $1 million from the success of its $2 iPhone application RedLaser. The software uses the iPhone's camera to scan the barcode of an item, and then searches online to find better deals for the product.
After a slow start with no publicity, RedLaser (iTunes link) became one of the best-selling applications on the iPhone by the end of September. Currently, according to MobileCrunch, the software is selling about 6,000 copies per day, and has earned well over $1 million in revenue from more than 750,000 downloads. It has been consistently in the top 5 paid applications of the App Store for the last three months.
"Co-Founder Jeff Powers says that though the app hit the market in May, it wasn’t getting any traction," the report said. "After releasing an update to the app which made it 'actually work,' according to Jeff, they saw a dramatic increase in sales. This was despite the fact that they did nothing different upon the re-launch and got almost zero press pickup when they updated the app. The hypothesis is that this came entirely from word-of-mouth sales, which is probably a good bet. Who wouldn’t want to show off to their friends the cool new barcode-scanning price-checking app on their phone?"
This week alone, the application has been featured on Martha Stewart Living and in The Wall Street Journal. Occipital plans to release more App Store software in the future.
Wesley Hilliard
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
William Gallagher
100 Comments
Red Laser.....I'll have to check it out.
Congrats to RedLaser! I like hearing stories about an artist or developer succeeding purely on merit, with no marketing.
“Actually works” is a great feature to add!
This article, should discuss more about a relevant company with success in the App Store, such a Red Laser.
Then to mention anything about MICROSOFT . Bing is to late and iCan't wait for the day that Microsoft, realizes thats it's futile efforts to " revolutionize search" has only drained it's monies and time for the worst.
Stories like Red Laser are ones that inspire Innovation and excitement amoung new developers and current, for the BEST PLATFORM in the mobile arena.
Appleinsider should not waste their time, talking about microsoft or there "apps", unless it's about the failure and destruction of the company and it's effort's.
Congrats to RedLaser! I like hearing stories about an artist or developer succeeding purely on merit, with no marketing.
?Actually works? is a great feature to add!
If I remember correctly it was that after they launched the software they discovered some bugs. When they issued a patch they had to go twenty rounds with the App Store approval folks. It took months to figure out what Apple didn't like and to get a patch that worked and Apple approved of.
RedLaser was the single coolest app on the AppStore until they took away direct links to Amazon.com. Whenever I shopped anywhere for anything over $20 or so (books, toys, whatever), I'd scan it with RedLaser to see what the 'net price on it was and whether it was getting good/bad reviews.
With the latest version of the app, reviews are extremely difficult to find, removing most of the value of the app. Most of the good press from the app was for the previous version, so be careful if you're buying it now.