Bing new feature brings screen contextual search before Google’s Now on Tap

Bing is Microsoft’s search engine offering, and Redmond is clear in its intentions: it wants to challenge Google at its own game.

Microsoft today is introducing a major new capability to its Bing Search app for Android. “With Bing’s new API, you can expose the relevant information to your users directly within your apps, keeping them more engaged”. However, you still can’t use it yet. Soon after the announcement, the new update was made available for testing as Developer Preview and now we have an official name for it: Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has bolstered its search engine Bing with a fresh application programming interface (API), which developers can use to receive Bing’s analytical prowess in their apps.

Regarding Android 6.0 SDK and Android Marshmallow, Jamal Eason, Product Manager of Android, wrote in a blog post. It’s plain old convenient to not have to jump out of one app and into another and then go back later. Unfortunately for now, the Snapshots feature is limited to the US in English. This means that users will be able to pull up Google Now to make a quick search across any app while using the smartphone. There’s also no integration with other apps or services like there will be with On-Tap, and it’s missing the context provided by all the Google data on the phone. Users of Windows 10 are faced with an option to sync their device, whether Windows or not, as part of the set-up process.

Android M is working with a number of devices so that they can come up with a standard API that suits all sensors. Basically, it offers contextual search just like Google Now on Tap, except that it is ready to be employed by Android users right now. Inspired by the innovation on display across the entire mobile device and application market-not to mention the opportunities therein-his team realized that they couldn’t “stay inside the four walls of Microsoft”, he said.