In order to strengthen its search experience, Microsoft upgraded its free Bing application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch and also added bookmarks, location setting and a number of other features.

The application, which was launched in mid-December, has seen more than 1 million downloads, and enables the users to bookmark Websites, map directions, search terms as well as the weather report.

The users can view as well as edit their search history. The private search feature can be used to search the Web without having saved their earlier searches on the iPhone. The ones who love their privacy will like this option of letting the users wipe out their digital footprints.

When the user either starts or ends locations in directions, the Bing iPhone app auto-suggests contacts from the user's address book. A service akin to this has been offered by Google with its Google maps for mobile applications.

An additional parental control option on the search settings is being added by the Bing team, so that the parents may set a SafeSearch level by creating a password making it difficult for the kids to change.

The app also supports the copying and pasting of URLs. As a matter of fact, Microsoft's ballyhooed Windows Phone 7 Series will also not support such functionality, which is to be released later this year.

Bing Mobile team member Florian Voss wrote, “We've made a number of stability fixes and usability tweaks, especially in image search, and design updates have made options and dialog boxes easier to use”.