Today the Bing team announced some new updates to Bing for mobile. Although m.bing.com has always offered a mobile-optimized way to do local searches and view maps, the updates integrate some of Bing’s killer features.

Some of the new features include live NFL stats, flight status searches, and an optimized Bing for touch devices like the iPhone, the Zune HD and the T-Mobile G1.

Bing has always included the ability to do local searches from its mobile site (something Google added last month) and now they are bringing some real-time data to the mobile site as well.

For instance, if you type in an NFL player or team name into the search bar, you’ll get back stats or see upcoming games. If a game is in progress, you can get real-time updates on plays. The NFL feature is only available in the US, but it’s a pretty cool way of getting real-time info quickly. You can also search for an airline and flight number and get the latest departure and landing times.

Perhaps the biggest overhaul is for touch devices — like the iPhone or the ZuneHD. Bing mobile now has an optimized interface that is more graphically enhanced than the standard site and also offers some nice touch features for browsing through content.

What really stood out to me, however, was just how much better Bing’s results for certain content looked when formatted for mobile as compared to Google. For instance, if I search for movie times in both search engines on my iPhone, I’ll get mobile-formatted results from both devices. However, if I want to see upcoming times for specific films, the experience is totally different.

Look at this image to see what I mean:

Google hasn’t optimized its actual time showcase for the mobile browser, meaning I have to zoom and scroll in order to see what’s going on. The Bing interface is much much nicer.

The only real problem with Bing for mobile is that most mobile browsers don’t offer any way to change the default search engine. I might prefer to use Bing rather than Google – but on my iPhone, I have to go to the site every time, rather than having access in the search bar.

Still, by bringing some of its best features to mobile, Bing might be able to carve out a niche by offering a better experience than Google. What do you think of Bing for mobile?

Tags: bing, bing for mobile, Google, iphone

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