If one thing is certain, people love the Bing Apps suite on Windows Phone. From Weather, to News to Finance, the Bing team has done a great job of bringing a great core-user experience, all for free. But there was one major complaint that the Windows 8.1 RT apps had but the Phone apps did not: Sharing.
Today, version 3 of Bing Sports (3.0.1.121) is now live in the Store for Windows Phone, up from version 2 (2.0.2.177), which came out in October. Large version changes mean new features and we’re happy to report Sharing is now onboard.
On the Windows Phone Bing apps, when you came across a story that you wanted to share, there was no direct – or even indirect – way of passing that info through the Windows Phone social tools, like email, SMS, Twitter, etc. It was a real kick in the pants as Windows Phone has some ready-made APIs for developers to tap into native sharing (which also picks up third party apps). We had a hunch it was coming, as the Windows Store versions already had it, so it was just a matter of time.
Now with version 3 of Bing Sports, that feature is ready in tow. By tapping the three dots ‘…’ near the bottom, users will be presented with the now-familiar Share icon (see lede image). Only Email is allowed, which is an odd omission, but we think we know why: the system generates a summary of the story, along with a Windows 8/Windows Phone specific generated link. So sharing on Twitter, for instance, would be prohibitive due to the length restrictions. Same with SMS. (See above image for an example).
No other new features were noted, though we’re still tinkering around. Presumably bug fixes for the Live Tile updates and other things were addressed.
As of today (12 PM ET), Bing Weather, News and Finance do not have corresponding updates. But if we had to bet, those apps should have similar 3.x updates coming out in the near future. The Holy Grail will of course to get Sharing built into News, as that is probably the most used Bing app next to Weather. We’ll of course keep an eye out for it, as those updates could come out at any time.
Pick up Bing Sports version 3 (3.0.1.121) here in the Store or scan the QR code below. Let us know in comments if you see anything else that’s different.
Via: WPCentral Forums; Thanks, Arpit M., for the tip!
