Microsoft has made several improvements to Bing Maps in their preview, particularly enhancements to search. Here are some of the things Microsoft has added to the new Bing Maps.
One of the first noteworthy new features in the Bing Maps Preview is that there is now only one search box. Previously, Bing Maps had two search boxes — one for what you wanted to search for, and the other for where you wanted to search it.
Search quality has also been improved, as you will see more information on your results. The Bing Maps website and the Windows 10 app share the same search engine, so there’s greater consistency and relevance in searches as well. With that being said, Microsoft has improved the app’s results too. Take a look at the two screenshots below and see the difference. As you can see, the Bing Maps Preview gives more relevant and useful information, whereas the old Bing Maps pretty much only gives a Wikipedia summary and a couple links.
In addition, you’ll get more results when you search in the Bing Maps preview. When you search for something, you will get as many as up to 20 search results for places. If there are more results, they will be indicated in smaller dots on the map along with the larger more relevant dots.
Auto-suggest in search has multiple improvements, including automatically placing waypoints for suggestions and icons that indicate the type of result. So, for example, when you search “thai” you may get a result for “Thai food near Atlanta” with a magnifying glass icon indicating it’s a search suggestion, and a result for “Thai Heaven” with a building icon indicating it’s a restaurant.
There are many other improvements as well, including searching directions within waypoints, searching places close to a route, and searching for directions and traffic (for example, you can search for “directions to Charleston” and you will find what you searched for along with traffic conditions).
If you’d like to try it yourself, you can visit the Bing Maps Preview website at bing.com/mapspreview. Do you think these new features make Bing Maps a lot better and more efficient? Give us a shout about what you think in the comments below.
