Microsoft’s Bing running on the iPhone always perplexed me a little.  I’m conflicted.  I feel as though Luke must have felt when being lured to the dark side by his father and the emperor.  Bing is a really nice search engine but aren’t Microsoft and Apple supposed to hate each other?  What’s next?  “Cat’s and Dogs living together?”

Microsoft has announced a new version of the Bing app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

You can get it for free from the App Store on your device or use iTunes to download it.

The original version of the application was released by in November but has since received not only stability and bug fixes but a host of new features as well.

The new features include:

Bookmarks and improved web browsing:  you can now bookmark maps, directions, web sites, businesses, search terms, even the weather report, and get to the bookmarks right from the Bing home page.

Sharing: you can share interesting results with your friends using e-mail.

Copy and paste URLs: you told us and we listened! We now support copying and pasting URLs.

Parental control on search settings: we helped make search safer by letting you set a SafeSearch level and create a passcode so it can’t be changed. This is a benefit for parents who want to make sure the kids are only going to safe sites on their devices.

Search history and private search: you can now view and edit your search history.  You can also search the web without saving your history on the device using private search.

Explicit location setting: let your iPhone find you or set a specific location so you can search near there (super useful when you’re going to travel to another city and want to find things around there).

Tighter integration of contacts in directions: Bing now autosuggests contacts from your address book when you enter start and end locations in directions.

Support for 1^st generation iPod touch devices: we now support all versions of iPod touch.