The iPhone will now feature Bing search for Spotlight. Microsoft claims that “Bing will be powering the new integrated web search in iOS Spotlight.” iOS 8 will come pre-installed on the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, in addition to the iPhone 4s (and newer) and iPad 2 onwards. So, these Apple devices should now be able to use Bing in Spotlight.
Spotlight is a way for iPhone users to search their phone for things such as messages, apps, and the web. Currently it uses Google, with an option for Wikipedia. It is not yet clear if Google will remain, or if whether Bing will replace Google.
This follows the integration Bing received in the new OSX Yosemite. Additionally, Bing partly powers Siri. With Microsoft providing products like Office on the iPad, this integration promises an even wider availability of Microsoft products on Apple devices in the future. However, Safari is still using Google search.
Microsoft is continuing its push to get its services across multiple platforms. The software giant even provides a new tab page for Chrome that gives users easy access to Bing. This is the similar to the strategy Google used before the rise of Android, and we can all see the results for them.
