In an effort to compete with Google, Microsoft recently released a Bing search application to the Apple App Store. Similarly to Google’s Mobile App, the Bing app provides access to all the Bing features including a voice search. According to Microsoft, Bing is the “Mobile decision engine that is always by your side” and that it should be used for ” quick answers, Web searches, product lookups, and local listings”.
After reading mostly good reviews of Microsoft’s app I was interested to see what all the hullabaloo was about, but I haven’t been able to and there’s a good reason for that. I can’t install the damn thing. Why you ask? It’s because my iPod touch is so ancient it doesn’t have a microphone. Yes that’s right, it won’t install because I failed a mic check. But wait, take a look at Microsoft’s own screenshot below:
Yup, you saw that correctly. That’s a search box. Whoever is using this app to find thai restaurants in Boston isn’t speaking into their phone or newer iPod. They’re doing it the old fashioned way. The web 1.0 way. The same antiquated way I would on my iPod touch. They typed it.
What makes matters worse is that Google’s mobile app, which Microsoft is attempting to thrust out of the limelight with Bing, doesn’t have this problem. In the settings section of Google’s app, the option for voice search is grayed out with a message stating that it is not available and the app is still 100% effective. It’s just missing a few bells and whistles.
The question now is why did Microsoft couple the voice technology so closely into their app that it can’t work on the mic-less iPods? It seems once again that Microsoft is striving too hard to battle Google without fully thinking out the solution to the problem. As a direct result, they’ve failed a basic tenet of software engineering: KISS, or “keep it simple, stupid!” and that’s what really grinds my gears.