Bing Comes To The iPhone Via Robotvision
Bing is beginning to find its way onto the iPhone through apps that build on top of its APIs. One that just hit the iTunes Store is an augmented reality app called Robotvision (iTunes link). Like other AR apps, it uses the video camera on the iPhone 3GS, as well as the GPS and the compass to bring up data about nearby restaurants and shops, including reviews. It gets this local business data from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Once you find a place nearby, you can call it the business from within the app. A lot of this functionality is already in the current Yelp iPhone app hidden as an Easter Egg, but Robotvision has some nice extra features. For instance, a feature is triggered by looking down at the screen, which shows the business and others like it as pins on a map. You can toggle back and forth between augmented reality view and map view depending on how the phone is positioned. (see video demo below).
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