Mobile Search V2 released - Improved Navigation, Cache, Movie Searching, GPS, Traffic reporting and more!

The Mobile Search team has released V2 of the rich client application for Windows Mobile, as well as a major update to the browser based interface. Whether you have a J2ME (Java) phone, Windows Mobile phone, or any other device with a mobile browser, Live Search has you covered with maps, directions and business search. The J2ME and Windows mobile applications add a bunch of advanced features not possible in the browser based app. There's also a beta version of the client app for Blackberry devices.

To get started, find your mobile device in the list below:

Windows Mobile - Download by visiting http://wls.live.com from your devices browser. There are versions for WinMo 5 or later, as well as WinMo 2003

J2ME - Download by visiting http://wls.live.com Choose J2ME, then choose your device.

Blackberry (beta) - Download by visiting http://wls.live.com and choosing US or UK. then choose your blackberry model.

Everyone Else - If your phone has a browser (just about ANY browser will do) simply visit http://m.live.com/ There's nothing to download - just start searching!

iPhone - Unfortunately I don't think Apple will permit you to install an application inside their walled garden, so you can't run even our J2ME client :-( You can however access the browser based version with one caveat. Browse to http://m.live.com When you do a search, hit "Go" on the soft-keyboard after entering your search terms as the normal search button is not active. The mobile search team will have a maintenance release shortly to address this issue.

There is a FAQ here: http://mobile.search.live.com/client/faq.aspx

For Windows Mobile, here are some screen captures and a new feature list -











Movie Showtimes: Want to see a movie but don’t know what’s playing? Get Movie Showtimes near you and be on your way!
More Local Data with Reviews: Want to go out for dinner but not sure which restaurant to pick? Let your fellow restaurant goers help you out – make a decision based on user ratings.
Maps: View Mobile Virtual Earth maps wherever you are. For improved performance, pop in your storage card to enable the large cache option. Street maps, Aerial and Hybrid are supported.
Directions: Lost? Get found with better support for GPS integration and improved turn-by-turn navigation. We’ll even prompt you to auto-reroute if you get lost!
And for those of you accessing the Browser based interface -











A Single Search Box: Tell us what and where, if applicable and you’ll get the most relevant results from Instant Answers, Local, Web, Images to News and Spaces … all perfectly formatted for your mobile phone.
Image Search: We’ve unleashed our image search capability on the mobile and you don’t even have to ask for it. Click on a result to see a copy of the image optimized for your your mobile (when necessary).
Instant Answers: We’ve reserved some premium real estate for Instant Answers we’ve all come to love. Currently, we offer weather, finance, movie show times and Encarta Instant Answers and there’ll be more to come.
Local Directory Listings: Get business and residential listings with ratings sorted by relevance. You can also narrow results by filtering on the most relevant categories!
Web, News & Spaces: Last, but not least, we automatically search web, news and spaces for relevant results. Should you click on a result within these scopes, we render the destination site for viewing on mobile.

I took this from http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!8910.entry