In what is evidently an alternative to Google’s Mobile App for the iPhone, Microsoft had readied its Bing mobile search iPhone app for immediate launch via the Apple App Store.

Featuring a simple design and beautiful landscape images, the free Bing Mobile app is similar in look and feel to the Microsoft Bing PC Website. However, the most notable difference between the two apps is that the mobile search app page displays six categories - Images, Movies, Maps, Businesses, News, and Directions.

Upon Microsoft’s scheduled announcement of the Bing Mobile app on Tuesday night, on its Behind Bing blog, the free service will become downloadable from the App Store, and will serve as a doorway to Bing’s Web search and other services. The service is, however, already available in iTunes.

The Bing Mobile service will provide users turn-by-turn directions with Bing Maps, along with traffic information. The app also focuses equally on local results in movie listings, weather and businesses. The app also features voice search; the ability to open multiple tabs within the app; and pushpins for saving locations and multiple locations shown on a single map.

While the Bing mobile app conspicuously leaves out ‘Bing Shopping’ on the home page, it has also not been specified whether Streetside, a feature of the Bing Maps Beta similar to the Google Street View, will feature in the app.