Microsoft has added Windows 7 apps to its Bing Visual Search Beta tool. What that means is you can check out the latest, top rated, or most downloaded apps for Windows Phone 7 using a desktop web browser. No Zune Desktop software required. No Windows Phone 7 device required.
You can carve up the results in a number of different ways. There are 16 categories, including Books & Reference, Entertainment, Music & Video, News & Weather, Social, and Travel, as well as a number of subcategories. You can also see the 25 top rated apps, 25 newest free or paid apps, or 25 most downloaded apps.
Clicking on any app brings up a details screen which shows you a description, screenshot, user ratings, and related web links.
Unfortunately there’s one thing I haven’t figured out how to do yet: search. Despite the fact that Bing is a search engine, whenever I enter a query in the search box at the top of the page, I end up navigating away from the Windows Phone 7 Apps Visual Search page and getting a list of general web results.
It also looks like it might take a few days for new apps to show up on Bing. On November 9th, the newest apps I could find were added to the Windows Phone Marketplace on the 6th.
via WP Central
