Deal of the Day!
MSN
Read in WPCentral App
460

Say goodbye to Bing apps, and hello to new MSN apps

By Sam Sabri, Monday, Sep 29, 2014 at 7:57 pm EDT

Microsoft has just updated the suite of Bing apps on Windows Phone. The update drops the Bing branding and replaces it with MSN. So far we're not seeing any new features in these apps, mostly just the branding change.

Earlier this month Microsoft announced plans to replace the Bing apps with a rebranding that focused on MSN. This coincided with their overhauled MSN portal that came out a few weeks ago. At IFA, we saw the slight rebranding starting to place in the Bing apps on Windows Phone.

We also recently learned that Bing Finance wouldn't become MSN Finance, but instead would rebrand as MSN Money.

Today all those changes we've been talking about have happened. Head into the Windows Phone Store and you'll see updates for Bing Travel, Bing Finance, Bing Sports, Bing Food & Drink, Bing Health & Fitness, Bing News and Bing Weather. However after the update, they won't say Bing.

Play around with the new MSN apps and let us know if you notice any new features!

MSN Money

On Windows 8.1 we're only seeing an update for Bing Finance, which also turns it into MSN Money. We'll let you know when the rest of the Bing apps on Windows 8.1 receive their rebranding.

Update: Turns out MSN Health & Fitness does come with a changelog of new features! With the Health & Fitness app you now have:

  • Added new and independent cloud store to sync data between devices; removed integration with Microsoft Health Vault
  • Added a lock-screen option

Let us know what you think of the update to Health & Fitness and if you see other new changes. Thanks for the heads up Greg!

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Sam Sabri Managing Editor

"Windows Phone 24/7. XBL Gamertag - GeneralSham. Instagram/Twitter/Etc - samsabri"

271
2047
Filed in:
Windows Phone Apps

Tags:
MSN Apps
2
loading...
0
loading...
1
loading...
0
loading...

Reader comments

Say goodbye to Bing apps, and hello to new MSN apps

460 Comments
Greg Hartman

MSN is a great brand name. I'd rather Microsoft kept 'MSN' as part of the app names to present a unified branding across platforms. It's a lot easier to search on 'MSN' to discover all of the apps, vs. searching one at a time.
•
I wonder if they'll use 'MSN' when the apps hit iOS and Android. Hopefully they'll keep a consistent user-experience across platforms.

Greg Hartman

Updates: Health & Fitness app now has 1) it's own cloud store to sync data between devices, and has dropped integration with Microsoft Health Vault; 2) a lock-screen option.

Diana Silva

and now doesn't sync with PC :/
update: desinstall and install the app on PC .. and now it works perfect! really fast! i'm surprised! :)

Jonny702

I agree with both of you. I think the name "Bing" needs it more as they want to increase the search engine's reach. I guess they are trying to have the apps be an extension of the new MSN homepage, but even that, MSN is a name that seems mostly dead to me

hmzshaw

I would disagree to the fact that MSN is great brand name. It may just barely be good out side of US. For me MSN wad a bloated attempt by Msft to stand up against AOL and Yahoo in one go. That is exactly where it failed. It never had any thing of to claim to its own or was there to much that people don't get to see.

Jas00555

That's what I've been saying the entire time. Neither are necessarily great brands to go with, but at least MSN has market share (430 million people).

DJCBS

Only among some Microsoft fans. Bing is the subject of ridicule in the US (like it or not) and in Europe it's simply despised or just plain unknown (because of the complete lack of usefulness of it thanks to Microsoft's commitment to their US-first, US-Only policies).

 

Microsoft has damaged the Bing brand beyond repair at this point and I think they've acknowledged it (much like with Windows 8).
That's why they're going for a brand that, albeit a lot older, it's more recognized, even if only because tons of people associate it with the popular MSN Messenger. MSN is, in a lot of ways, a brand much more recognized by people of all ages than Bing. I wouldn't be surprised to see it replace Bing in the search engine name too.

jlzimmerman

I have yet to speak to anyone who has a negative opinion on Bing. A non-preference, yes. A neutral opinion, yes. A negative opinion? No.

DJCBS

Come spend a few days in Europe and try using it here. I assure you, by the end of your trip, it will be you, yourself, who will have the negative opinion ;)

Vitor Correia2

I'm from europe and I use bing, actually I prefer it to google. My friends and family all use Bing and are also quite happy with it. So PLEASE, do not speak for all of us.

kuhio3

Omg....this guy...please stop publishing made up facts that you can't backup...99.9% of the UK hate Bing?? Really? I suppose you have some inside knowledge that no one else in world has??...or you just hate MS because they brought NOKIA and laid off all of your friends... Either way your posts are outlandish and very few people believe what you write. BING actually has a pretty decent reputation as a search engine outside of the U.S. but there are people who feel their maps need updating for many countries...which MS is doing ....so please .....when you can get 99.9% of the U.K. To back up your ridiculous claims ...bring us the facts...otherwise you are just trolling

Forc3

Ridiculous. We Europeans don't give a single fuck about who you are, so please don't speak for us thanks. To counter your argument, Bing is relatively unknown in Europe how exactly is its reputation tarnished? I know many people who use bing on a daily basis and they love it.

Peg Leg

Well, that's the last time we Americans drag your asses out if a world war, you pussies. Next time we'll let Germany kick the shit out of you like they were twice, until we have to bail Europe out.

WorzelGummage

@Peg Leg,
Where did that come from? You have a very limited knowledge and understanding of history by making ridiculous statements like that. You have disrespected all those who fought and died in both World Wars. Shameful.

mojaveazure

@ Peg Leg, then explain Vietnam and Korea. Both of those America attacked to get trid of communism. The result: Vietnam is a communist country and Korea is still split into North and South (actually at the border that was there before American went in). Learn your history, idiot.

neo158

@Peg Leg Tell me then, where were you Americans when the Germans were bombing the shit out of Britain and marching all over Europe. The RAF won the Battle of Britain NOT the USAF.

It was only when the Japanese decimated the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor that you Americans woke up to the fact that everyone else was fighting a World War!!!!

neo158

Thanks for speaking for me, I always knew I couldn't speak for myself and that I need someone to do it for me /s!!!!

kevC4D

I have a negitive opinion of anyone brainwashed to say google all day. Those people are drones and don't have the right to judge me or anything else.

Rug

I can surf through hosts in Europe and I can confirm that its bad. It would work better if it returned the US results.

It's too bad, I don't use google anymore here, or rarely.

itsjonyay

I have a negative opinion of Bing? I find that it doesn't return as relevent sites in searches as Google does (sadly, the same goes for all the other search engines I've tried too which is rather annyoing because Google as a company creep me out). 

spinzeroWL

Are you kidding? Bing is a joke around the world....the only place it seems to be acceptable is in the US (surprise, surprise).
The only good thing about Bing is the images it gives me on my 1020 lock screen!
Don't even get me started on the Bing Rewards farce (Microsoft emails me about such rewards that I'm not even eligible for because of my geographic location).
Bing is a sack of do-do

THE_Lawnboy

I've never heard Bing ridiculed in the U.S. You're completely full of crap. Bing is a far superior search experience than Google in the U.S.

Grizlyadams

I'm in the UK (which I believe is part if Europe) and changed to Bing in preference to google years ago. I know many people who've done the same. Not sure what you base your "ridicule" and "complete lack of usefullness" statements on, certainly not my experience.

neonspark

do you think bing is worse? while I agree it isn't all that great, bing at least is modern while MSN stinks of old and outdated in addition to being the home page for IE which is part of why people vomit when they use a PC without FF or chrome.

Shawn Of Belgrado

Lawl someone Said " ow You googled that?" I Said "no i binged that :p" and it was just like normal! :D ppl say Google cuz it can and everybody says Google, unless You show another way theyre okay with that!

melzappICTServ

You are so very wrong! The true potential is coming alive now. Yes its more like why wasn't it like this from the start, but it's here!

WindowsPhoenix

Yes! Let's help our competition, by bringing our apps, that formerly were a unique selling point for our platform, to our rivals; for free and even better (Office mobile) than on our residential platform. What could go wrong?

William Tadekawa

It does have potential, which is why I've been sticking with it for so long. Hopefully the next update will show it. It's not like Apple. I mean, why waste time and money trying to make something new if you know people are going to buy it anyway? They just have to make some small improvements and have Jonathan Ive exaggerate all the "engineering" and "innovation" it requires to construct a product that is "truly remarkable." I have to admit, the price is truly remarkable, as well as the number of people who still buy it.

4look4rd

Unfortunately you are right. The writing is on the wall, WP is dying. The platform has failed to capture marketshare, it doesn't have apps because developers will never make their money back, and even the mainstream apps that we do have are crap because big devs take Microsoft's bribe and abandon the platform.

Microsoft is always one-two years too late to the game, and often with half baked solutions. It seems to take two steps forward and one backwards in every update.

Trust me, I love the platform and the hardware but you have to be very naive to think that its not dying.

STXVI

You sound like one of those corporate people who waste a bunch of money on a good idea and if it doesn't get immediate results you are ready to dump it. In my community 3 years ago no one was looking at Windows Phone. Jump September 2014 and you are starting to see the phone everywhere...and people are beginning to recognize its existence. It's taken some time, but I believe that the phone can in another 5 years have 15-20% of the world smartphone market. But you are correct that MS needs to take better advantage of the windows of opportunity...ie. produce faster.

Posted via Windows Phone Central App

4look4rd

Some times its bette to just cut your losses. Microsoft is starting to do this by bringing its apps to other platforms.

MS services are not WP exclusive and Nokia is free to license its tech to other manufacturers. There really is nothing WP has to offer today, other than perhaps a pretty interface, that other platforms cannot do better.

The one saving grace that might extend the life of WP and perhaps make it viable is a kickass desktop integration. I am talking about turning a phone into a full blown desktop before Google or Apple figureout how to do it. But knowing Microsoft, I bet that they will once again be late to the party or pull another WP7-WP8 fiasco.

PachecoCorporationCeo

I agree
I'm not a troll I'm just a disappointed consumer on WP
WP was my first smartphone never had a phone before. = Samsung Focus
I never knew what WP was until I started exploring the WP7 OS then I was like Microsoft made this is pretty cool my friends used make fun of me but I didn't care
Then WP8 got released got a Lumia 920 I started loving it even more
Then WP8.1 came I love it
Microsoft is slower than molasses to grow this OS out
Hell I could've been a iPhone or Android user by then but I was offered WP

onysi

theyd be pretty stupid for acquiring nokia a few months ago then.  ill let u know when microsoft is stupid enough to give up a gold mine.  handing mobile market to ios and android on a silver platter  is something microsoft will never do.

DJCBS

Well, since they just bought a division from Nokia and NOT Nokia, and afterwards they fired half the employees... I'd say Microsoft has changed priorities.

TechmeIN64

Nokia was a disorganized company that had fat that needed to be trimmed. Nearly every economist and tech writer said the same. Obviously MS was going to let people go. We all saw it coming.

Forc3

WP has 8.5% and growing Marketshare in EU5 alone, added 10+ new OEMs in the last 3 Months and as early AdDuplex numbers show the 630 is a huge hit around the globe, yet you think its a dying platform.... uhm okay. And no I won't "trust" a random guy on the Internet.

wp8-1

Are you dense, dying would be if it were going down I market share, which it isn't. Sure, it might not be gaining market share quickly, but it isn't dying. I think you are the naive one.

Kevin Rush

I thought we were going to be able to vote down the trolls, the ignorant, the ridiculous, and the trouble makers? Let the voting begin.

phasar

It is being speculated that Microsoft is going to pull the plug on WP. Don't know if its actually in the process of happening as we speak. But we'll know soon enough.

bleached

They are not going to pull the plug completely. They are rebranding it just "Windows" and it will be pushed to the side while they try to keep the desktop users from defecting. It won't be killed, but any effort is going to be minimal going forward. You may see some new low end devices but nothing worthwhile.

MattMcQueen

Lol jk. I agree with you at that point Pacheco. Microsoft knows that they are late for the game but they seems didn't push harder to make the WP better & more recognized OS besides IOS and Android. As a WP user, the thing that I really hate is the OS & GDR update . Why we need to wait for a long time for the OS/GDR update? Etc like the 8.1 GDR1 , is already released as preview dev few month ago, but still no news when it will be released to the public. Even the 8.1 update also takes slow time to roll out to all country. Same goes with new phone too. The 8.1 is quite stable version already but there still lack of features like GIF support , the network setting(APN) also really lacks option unlike Android since the damn carrier in my country seems didn't give a shit about WP , so we have to enter the APN manually but it still not working because of the lack of configuration setting in the WP( U can compare it with Android network setting & see the big difference). Btw , I have no issues with the apps, although we still get lacks of mainstream/famous developer. Actually I also pushing hard to reach some famous dev by tweeting them almost every day although I sounds like a total douchebag begging for apps. Some of them are tweeting back like Top Eleven(they say they will make it available soon) , Candy Crush says they will not make it for a moment(lol , at least they knows already)Actually most of apps that I use on WP are super good making my friend that using LG Nexus (Android) are jealous and most of them are not available at their Play Store. I can conclude that :
IOS=Application
Android OS=Personalization
WP OS =Smooth & Fluidity
Btw we can see that Apple & Google are working hard 100% for their mobile OS, so why not Microsoft work 200% harder for their mobile OS since they were late for the games. Honesty, Microsoft are BAD at MARKETING. They need to put more tv commercial too. What a shame that WP OS are still rare & unknown in my country. Maybe people will disagree with me at some point but this is my honest opinion. I even didn't have a plan to switch to other OS since I still have faith in WP OS(I really love it) . :)

odoggyfresh

On a related note, I am really enjoying the new MSN webpage. I have changed it to be my homepage since the preview came out and it provides a great portal to Facebook, Twitter, Outlook, Onedrive and then all of my same Cortana news interests.

1berto

Yap, the new MSN page is really great, specialy for me that I can access lastest works on Office Online or OneNote.

c41

health&fitness clears personal profile details (except tracker data) and no longer supports hearthvault connect

SandStorm_RS

Orkut was a social networking site mostly used by brazilians. That's why mostly nobody else knows about it. inexpressive on usa, uk, and all other places.

Tumultus

Yeah, one thing is new, alright:

The publisher for this app doesn't allow it to be installed on an SD card ...

Screw this!

fdalbor

I could not agree with you MORE. If these MSM apps have to be run from phone memory they can take them and (you know what). I have been running Bing sports and Bing news from the SD card in my 820 since AT&T released cyan/8.1 for the 820/920 not too long ago. Aint going back. I will just delete them and go with another news or sports app that can be installed to the SD card.

Slovenix

Yeah and I think I'm getting a low storage error hah.. I have 10GB free space

Fixed by uninstalling and installing again :)

theefman

And next year they'll be rebranded to something else. Because goodness for it Microsoft settle on a cohesive brand without resurrecting a dead and poorly regarded brand.

pulkit10

Seriously. I thought the whole point of launching Bing was to replace the dying MSN and Live brands. Heck, they even rebranded MSN with Live! That's how "irrelevant" they perceived that name to be. What's next? They'll rebrand Windows Phone to Zune?

No wonder they're getting nowhere in the phone and search space because everytime they make a gain, some genius decides they need a new name for the service and alienates the user base. Why hasn't Google, for example, changed Gmail to Google Mail or something? Because it isn't necessary. People already know Gmail. They don't want to know it by any other name.

Ridiculous.

stickyshocker

Here here, my opinion bing for search and apps, xbox for games and Zune for music. A clear devide. I haven't used msn in about 10 years and back in the day was only a messenger service nothing more. I love the brands above shame 1 had been killed off already and looks like another is on its way, fast forward 5 years and we will all be sat in front of out msn games consol because xbox wasn't big enough!

Selfdestructo Bust

Totally agree. Just when the Bing brand is growing with a positive image, they change it to the ancient, boring sounding "MSN". Who is making this awful decisions? It's like they have a spy from Google inside Microsoft making nonsensical decisions on purpose.

melzappICTServ

Lol, simple and to the point. The thing is Bing was more related to its search feature, where's there's apps are actually tied to the features you get from MSN. So it is in fact not dumb (except for MSN Money - that to me is dumb...), it's just a part of the overall goal of providing centralized services first - then people will by the (hardware/software) products to get those services. It was dumb to can then Bing apps when the did more than just search, whereas that's ask Bing really is.

pulkit10

Not necessarily. Bing was initially launched more of as an umbrella term for their web services. MSN was perceived as irrelevant so they rebranded that to Live a while ago and then decided to launch Bing to clear that entire mess up.

Saying that Bing is just a search engine is like saying Google is just one. Google has built an entire ecosystem of web based services around that search engine - Microsoft needs to do the same. It's clunky having to transition from MSN to Bing and Outlook and then having separate divisions within the company for each service. Bring web services under one umbrella and the obvious candidate is the most popular name - Bing. Keep the mail and calendar/office to Outlook but put the web service with Bing.

pickypg

Microsoft has the worst marketing team in the tech industry.

"The Bing name is not working for us, so what should we make the new brand?"

"Live [app]"

"Xbox [app]"

"MSN [app]!"

"Let's go with MSN!"

Seriously. Fire the whole team. Microsoft's sales will double in the next year even if it's staffed with interns afterward.

jssm650

Right! It drives me CRAZY trying to figure out what they were/are thinking sometimes. I mean, these aren't stupid people but man, they sure do some stupid things! Only thing I can figure is that the "monopoly mind set" is so prevalent in the company that they can't shake it. Maybe firing everyone is the answer, who knows!?

STXVI

I think what is happening is the Nadella Effect. Balmer was a bit more scattered about things, but if you noticed, Nadella is a minimalist. It is about being streamlined and efficient.

One Brand - Microsoft

Posted via Windows Phone Central App

ccooley443

I'm not sure where Live or Bing came from, but in a way 'MSN' makes some sense and has some consistancy.  MS Word, MS Excel, etc are both MS apps... MSN News is a MicroSoftNetwork app.  

And using 'XBOX' for entertainmanet services and apps (games) also makes some sense since it's associated with a game / entertainment console.

1berto

The new MSN portal is very good, it haves shortcuts for several services. For example, there isn't a easy way to access lastest work on Office Online, even if you go to any page on the office online, if you select recent files, it will send you to onedrive, and then to office. To use any of the Microsoft sevices (Email, Office, OneNote or OneDrive), the MSN new portal is great.

Peg Leg

1994 was a good year! I graduated high school then thought, I have an idea, I'll do it all over again to earn a PhD....(tears), at least its over

irsyadhhs

Ouch! MS, Just rebrand Windows Phone to Windows Mobile again! Apple is really nice in marketing. Just put i + name, and voila! It becomes a massive hit.

89caps

Yeah why not simply Windows Sports, Windows Finance, Windows Sports, or Microsoft Sports, Finance etc

rysliv

What was wrong with the Bing name. Or no name at all which it used to be. Why can't it just be News, Travel, Sports, Health & Fitness instead of having MSN in front of everything.

Kevin Rush

Churn, change just for the sake of change. Just burns up money paying people to study and implement the change. It isn't obvious that it is strategic.

Jakez98

Can you imagine telling people that you use MSN Weather to check weather and MSN Money to check stock rates on your phone? It's really embarrassing.

neonspark

lol I agree.

Person: "hey do you know a good news app"

You: "yeah MSN news"

...silence

Person: "how old are you?"

Dries De Schepper

It's embarrassing that Microsoft continuously is rebranding. Pretty sure, the MSN brand will change as well in the future. It's a very confusing name.

pierrerv

Good move by MS. They need that portal. I'm tired of devs setting Google as default search browser on their browser...

pulkit10

Because Google is fast to work with. Has a simple no nonsense home page where you just start typing and things show up. Bing did it one better by having a better looking webpage/service that loaded equally quickly.

I'm sorry, but people don't want a "web portal" when they open up their browser. Complete waste of time and they already serve that content with live tiles and notifications so why bother? I'd save the 10 seconds and go where I want to go right away.

Case in point? Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Opera and other "portals" all have a declining user base or are now defunct.

neonspark

agreed, the last thing I want when I open a browser is a million crappy stories from 3rd date news sources half of which will be placed ads. I love bing.com's simplicity just as much as google's. I perfer bing though.

Ben Sailors

I actually disagree about Google it. Its close enough to goggle, oogle, etc have to do with looking at something, or looking it up. What's Bing? The microwave finishing?

jasongw

Bing has been around for ages. It literally means a heap or pile of something, usually metals, but really anything. And what is the internet if not a heap or pile of all kinds of stuff? Linguistically, it rolls off the tongue more easily because it doesn't have an extra stop consonant.

Kevin Rush

I like BING. The BING images on the BING search page is my home page. Have you noticed the amazing animations. I like the sound of the word, like when you discover something. BING.

MSN? Microsoft Sports & News? Boring.

Ben Sailors

It's just too casual and awkward sounding to be taken seriously. MSN is professional, if tarnished, overused, and corporately dry. Both are bad names.

chris88492

I totally agree. Micrsoft needs to get rid of a lot of these differents names it has for it's divisions. MSN, BING, XBOX, MICROSOFT, WINDOWS its just too much. Just verbally saying 'MSN' and 'BING' makes me contemplate suicide. I honestly did not even know MSN still existing until I read this article. 

Microsoft needs to just use the names Windows, and Xbox. And these apps should just be named 'WIndows Money', etc. It doesn't roll off the toungue but anyhting is better than MSN and BING.

yzdhsn

I've updated the bing weather app yet, but it's nothing different, the name still Bing weather inside the app.

kwambe5

However it updated the lock screen info to support forecasts! I'm looking the new update. The name means nothing to me so long as it works.

Davestrada

And they are selling Cortana which is powered by the unknown Bing... It'll give bad reputation, but Microsoft make better OneDrive and Skype for others, so they clearly give a f*ck

Pages