[Darius Wey]

http://wls.live.com/

News of the availability of a beta version of Windows Live Search for Mobile surfaced this week, and we took the opportunity to give the application a test run. Learn more about it after the break.

Windows Live Search is a very well-designed application that leverages the power of the Windows Live Local service. It offers four components: categorical-based searching, aerial and road mapping, driving direction searching, and traffic information.



With a city selected, you can flip through a number of categories to search for locations of interest (hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants, shopping centres, government and community centres, etc.).





The mapping feature is very similar to what's offered in Virtual Earth Mobile. It taps into the same Live Local service, and offers both aerial and road maps.



The zooming effect is animated (similar to using your scroll wheel in Live Search on your PC), and works very well with D-pads (up, left, right, and down for moving around the map; the action button for zooming in).



You can also fetch driving directions from Point A to Point B, no matter how far apart they are (well, within reasonable limits).



Fetching is relatively quick. The application uses the same spinning circle seen in the Xbox 360 and Zune.



And voila: driving directions!



But plain text is no fun, so Windows Live Search for Mobile offers route mapping functionality...



... which happens to support both aerial and road maps.



You can also retrieve traffic information for most major cities.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows Live Search for Mobile works for cities outside of the United States, though searching may be limited, so you'll probably find yourself using it for maps and nothing else. It's free, and very well put together, so go grab it today. A web-based version of Windows Live Messenger for Mobile is also available. Check Geekzone for a screenshot of the service on Pocket PCs.

[Darius Wey]

http://wls.live.com/

News of the availability of a beta version of Windows Live Search for Mobile surfaced this week, and we took the opportunity to give the application a test run. Learn more about it after the break.

Windows Live Search is a very well-designed application that leverages the power of the Windows Live Local service. It offers four components: categorical-based searching, aerial and road mapping, driving direction searching, and traffic information.



With a city selected, you can flip through a number of categories to search for locations of interest (hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants, shopping centres, government and community centres, etc.).





The mapping feature is very similar to what's offered in Virtual Earth Mobile. It taps into the same Live Local service, and offers both aerial and road maps.



The zooming effect is animated (similar to using your scroll wheel in Live Search on your PC), and works very well with D-pads (up, left, right, and down for moving around the map; the action button for zooming in).



You can also fetch driving directions from Point A to Point B, no matter how far apart they are (well, within reasonable limits).



Fetching is relatively quick. The application uses the same spinning circle seen in the Xbox 360 and Zune.



And voila: driving directions!



But plain text is no fun, so Windows Live Search for Mobile offers route mapping functionality...



... which happens to support both aerial and road maps.



You can also retrieve traffic information for most major cities.

Contrary to popular belief, Windows Live Search for Mobile works for cities outside of the United States, though searching may be limited, so you'll probably find yourself using it for maps and nothing else. It's free, and very well put together, so go grab it today. A web-based version of Windows Live Messenger for Mobile is also available. Check Geekzone for a screenshot of the service on Pocket PCs.

[freitasm]

Darius, the link for WLM Messenger for mobile browsers is http://mobile.live.com/wlm/imsi.aspx. Just visit it from a mobile browser (phone, smartphone or PDA) and use it!

By the way, the "Darius" on my screenshot at Geekzone is your handle...

[dodge45]

Cool stuff. But don't even try the Java version on a Windows Mobile Phone: it just doesn't work. Or maybe it's me...

The Windows native version looks very cool though. Since I don't have a GPS, I used it with Navizon, a virtual GPS using cellular and Wi-Fi triangulation, and it worked great: displayed my position on the map and displayed the traffic information in my area.
The maps were a little slow to display though: I know it's not my internet connection since the exact same map was loaded much faster on Internet Explorer.

[powder2000]

I saw this on www.jkontherun.com and decided to try it out on my ppc-6700. I was pleasantly surprised and actually love the program. The only thing I haven't gotten to work is the bluetooth gps connection. Anyone else have any luck?

[tivoboy]

great stuff, I have been using this a while now, and honestly, I haven't say "man, this ROCKS!" about anything from redmond in a long time!

I'd like to get the GPS working, i'll try the navizon stuff.

[alphonso]

I agree 100%. This is the best application Microsoft has come out with in centuries. And I'm a microsoft fan! But yeah this is a great app! I just cant get my bluetooth GPS to work yet.

[SkyBoy]

I just installed this on my HTC TyTN. The program works fine, but it has taken over the "Search" program for my PocketPC. Is there any way to get the regular "Search" back, as I often have to search the contents of my PocketPC (like to find an appointment or file on my PocketPC) without un-installing? I would like to have BOTH functions available to me...
Thanks in advance!

[alphonso]

Originally Posted by powder2000

I saw this on www.jkontherun.com and decided to try it out on my ppc-6700. I was pleasantly surprised and actually love the program. The only thing I haven't gotten to work is the bluetooth gps connection. Anyone else have any luck?

I have the same problem. My GPS connects but the Application just looks for the GPS data indefinateley

[ctmagnus]

Originally Posted by SkyBoy

I just installed this on my HTC TyTN. The program works fine, but it has taken over the "Search" program for my PocketPC. Is there any way to get the regular "Search" back, as I often have to search the contents of my PocketPC (like to find an appointment or file on my PocketPC) without un-installing? I would like to have BOTH functions available to me...
Thanks in advance!

I have the new Search directly on the Start menu (it installed itself there by default), and the old Search is still in Start Menu\Programs.

[SkyBoy]

Originally Posted by ctmagnus

I have the new Search directly on the Start menu (it installed itself there by default), and the old Search is still in Start Menu\Programs.

yeah, I had Search in the Start menu before installing Live Search. It replaced the default Search. I then uninstalled and it completely removed the Search item (was not in the Start menu OR under Programs). I had to beam over the search.lnk file from another PocketPC to get the function back.
strange...