And then there were three. Backseat drivers that is – with Microsoft announcing that it too would now offer its mobile mapping app for free, giving those hopelessly lost on the road a helping hand(held), like rivals Google and Nokia before it.
The voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions will be available as a Bing application for about a dozen Windows 6.x phones, a move which shouldn’t please GPS makers much.
“If you have a Windows phones on Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T you can use the voice guided navigation,” reads a post on the Microsoft blog.
So now, when you’re lost, all you need to do is roll down your Windows and ask, literally, by pressing the “Navigate” button on Bing, which will then proceed to “calculate your route, and guide you as you drive.”
Apparently, you can even “select the fastest or shortest route, choose to avoid traffic and/or tolls, get a map or a list of directions, and see arrows and hear alerts to know which way to turn next.” Almost as annoying as having your partner in the front passenger seat.
The app uses tech developed by Microsoft’s Tellme voice recognition division for “an amazingly lifelike voice experience.”
Google’s Android platform and Nokia’s Ovi Maps have long been believers in helping their lost flocks navigate their way to more application downloads, by providing a free and tasty tester in the form of a basic navigation app.
Apple’s app store also has plenty of mapping apps, but Microsoft’s new navigation feature will apparently not work on the iPhone, despite the availability of a Bing app.
Microsoft says that the new navigation services were also part of an overall revamp of its Bing apps homepage, where it hopes to distract drivers with “faster access to common searches, such as movies and traffic,” in that order, obviously.
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