Bing For Android [Not Reviewed], Fail!

I was going to review Bing for Android, Microsoft's search engine's app for Android. I can't do the review and this post will explain why.

I would love to install the Bing app on one of my many devices...

I tried searching for the Bing application on my current main Android device (a ZTE Skate also known as the BAP) and it would not appear on the Android Market. Having had no luck finding it, I swapped phone and used my Samsung Galaxy Pro. No luck with that device either. Thinking all this was very strange, I then picked up my Archos 80 G9 Honeycomb tablet and searched for Bing in the Android Market. I was relieved to fing "Bing - Microsoft Corporation" but when in the Android Market description page was faced with this:

"This item is not available with your operator."

I was quite annoyed by this. I logged onto market.android.com on my laptop and found the Bing application. When trying to select a device to install the application to I was faced by a list of 11 devices the application is not compatible with.

"This app is incompatible with all of your devices." Bing Fail!

So that's how what was going to be my review of the Bing app for Android turned into another blog post about Microsoft failure. I hope this is covered in the Linux Outlaws' Microwatch segment next week because it is really worthy of it in my opinion.

Microsoft have seen some sense (HTC pun not intended) and decided to get their search engine onto the fastest growing and soon to be dominant smartphone/tablet platform (mostly open source too!). They are not doing too well if their app is not compatible on my 11 devices which range from low-end low-res screens to high-res tablets.

I look forward to Microsoft sorting this out and being able to review the Bing app for Android at some point in the future...

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.