14 DAY TRIAL // As part of its effort to become a mobile company, Microsoft isn’t necessarily investing in Windows 10 Mobile and its devices, but in platforms where the majority of users already are, and delivering improvements actually makes sense.
This is one of the reasons Microsoft keeps rolling out updates for Android and iOS, and today it’s the turn of Bing to become more widely available for iPhone users.
Microsoft launches Bing as an iMessage extension, which means that Apple users who stick with the company’s messaging platform can now search for GIFs, places, movies, and pretty much everything online without even leaving the conversation.
Make plans for dinner from iMessage and using Bing
Links can be then shared with contacts, and Microsoft sees this as a great opportunity to make plans for a movie or a meal directly from iMessage.
“While sharing a Bing link was a good way to pass along content that users had common interest in, surfing back and forth between messaging friends and sifting through a multitude of movies or restaurants is a hassle. The Bing iMessage Extension allows you to share a restaurant or movie card directly so it’s easier and quicker to make plans,” the company explains.
Unfortunately, while seeing Microsoft improving its iOS apps is the right thing to do for the company, the release of Bing as an iMessage extension comes the same day when the software giant confirmed it’s leaving behind a top Windows 10 Mobile feature that it announced with much fanfare last October.
This shows that despite saying that it’s fully committed to Windows 10 Mobile on several occasions, improvements for Windows phones land at a painfully slow pace, while updates for rival platforms are released every once in a while.
This can only increase the frustration in the Windows phone community, even though this is shrinking as well, with statistics indicating that Microsoft’s mobile platform only has some 0.5 percent market share at this point.