Microsoft may compete against Apple when it comes to portable media players and personal computers, but when it comes to search Microsoft is embracing the Apple iPhone. Microsoft has announced the release of the Bing iPhone and Mac Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK is available from CodePlex and is being offered under open source with the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

Using the SDK, developers will be able to query Bing from an iPhone or iPod touch application. Other abilities include the ability to perform synchronous and asynchronous queries and web, image, video, news and phonebook results. It’s Microsoft’s hope that the new SDK will allow Bing to become a key feature of new iPhone applications.

It’s kind of interesting to see Microsoft encourage development of applications for the iPhone. Yet, if Microsoft wants to get aggressive with its search engine this is a great way to do it. Now it only needs someone to actually use the Bing SDK to bring more Bing to the iPhone.

via Microsoft brings Bing to iPhone with open source SDK – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates | Geek.com.