While some Bing apps, like Food & Drink and Health & Fitness, have only recently arrived on Windows 8, Bing Finance, News, Sports and Weather have been around for quite a while. When Windows Phone was announced, Microsoft pledged to bridge the gap between mobile and desktop with the platform. While we are moving in that direction, it will be a long time before Windows and Windows Phone gain some level of mutual integration. For now, the two platforms only share a precious few apps. That said, Microsoft finally seems to be rectifying matters, and has started by bringing the popular Bing app suite from Windows 8 to Windows Phone. You can finally have the official Finance, News, Sports and Weather apps from Bing on your smartphone. The apps aren’t too different from their desktop counterparts, which makes them all the more attractive.
Bing Finance
If you are even remotely interested in the stock market, Bing Finance is a must-have. The app gives an overview of exchanges, and also lets you personalize things to keep an eye on your portfolio. It has a separate section for the latest news stories related to the business world and a ‘Watchlist’ that shows share prices from major companies. The app is helpful for keeping track of price trends, current index values, and the prices of different commodities. Bing Finance even comes packed with a comprehensive currency converter.
Bing News
Bing News supports multiple sources from where stories are pulled at frequent intervals. The app has separate sections for headlines and featured articles, and lets you stream news bulletins or watch different videos related to the latest happenings around the globe. Bing News can also be personalized by adding different topics to the app’s follow list. You can pin any topic to the Start screen, and always stay apprised of the latest happenings with breaking news notifications.
Bing Sports
Unlike some other sports apps available for Windows Phone, Bing Sports handles almost all sports you can think of. Get started by heading to the ‘my sports’ section and adding different events and categories to your list. In each category, there are photos, news stories, videos, live scores, fixture lists and much more. You can also keep a close watch on your favorite teams from multiple sports from within a dedicated section.
Bing Weather
Bing Weather has almost everything you could want in a weather app. You can add multiple places, the displayed stats are pretty thorough and there is even a live tile. The only snag we can see is that the live tile can’t be stretched to maximum size, and you have to make do with a small square tile, though it does show all the important data like the current temperature and a photo that changes depending upon weather conditions.
All the Bing apps are Windows Phone 8 only, and we won’t be surprised if Microsoft decides to start shipping them preinstalled with future versions of the OS.
