Microsoft updates Bing Search app with translation widget in Safari and Notification Center

Bing Search (Safari extension 001)

First demoed at WWDC 2014 back in June, Microsoft’s Bing translation widget and custom actions for Safari and the Notification Center in iOS 8 is now available by way of an update to the free Bing Search app for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. Available free of charge in the App Store, the new Bing Search 5.0.1 also contains bug fixes.

As shown on the screenshots top of post, enabling the Bing Search Translation action in Safari requires that you bring up the Share sheet in Safari.

Just tap the third icon from the bottom right in Safari.

The standard Share sheet will pop up. Now swipe to the left on the actions listed at the bottom of it and tap the More icon. The Activities screen appears where you must set the “Open in Bing” and “Bing Translator” switches to ON in order to enable Bing’s Safari actions.

That’s it, you’re all set.

As seen on the screenshot below, you can now simply choose the Bing Translator option in Safari’s Share menu for a machine-translated English version of the webpage you’re viewing, or choose to open the webpage in the native Bing app.

Bing Search (Safari extension 002)

This is an in-line translator so translated webpages look exactly like their originals. To enable the Bing Search Translation widget in the Today view of the Notification Center, pull down from the top of the screen to bring up the Notification Center UI.

Now tap the Edit button halfway down.

Bing Search (Today widget 001)

A new screen shows up listing all your enabled and disabled Today widgets. Find the “Bing Today” widget and hit the free plus sign to enable it. The widget now appears right inside the Today view of the Notification Center, showing Bing’s image of the day, currently trending topics and more.

Bing Search (Today widget 002)

As a reminder, Bing also powers the new integrated web search in iOS 8’s Spotlight to provide web search links alongside the contents of your phone so you can find information even faster.

Go to Settings > General > Spotlight Search to enable Bing Web Results. Note that this feature is region-dependent so users in certain markets may be unable to enable Bing Web Results for Spotlight searches (for details, check out Apple’s iOS 8 Feature Availability webpage).

Aside from searching the web, Bing’s Search app lets you save money with Bing Rewards and Bing Offers, keep up with trending stories, news and images, save the daily homepage photos to use as your Wallpaper or Lock screen (and sync them to Bing Desktop) and much more.

The 12.5-megabyte Bing Search download requires an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 5.0 or later. Bing for iPad has not received these iOS 8-specific features as of yet.

[App Store]