Microsoft Skips Apple's Copy, Paste with Bing 'Lasso'

Microsoft is rolling out a new version of its native Bing application for Apple's iPad that, with a new user gesture, aims to ditch the need to use Apple's built-in copy-and-paste feature. The v1.1 update is now live in the App Store.

Microsoft Skips Apple's Copy, Paste with Bing 'Lasso'

Dubbed "Lasso," the gesture has users drawing their finger around any word or words on a Web page to start a new search from that selection. That's versus selecting those same words with a tap, drag, and button press using iOS' built-in copy-and-paste tool, or manually typing them into the search box.

In a blog post announcing the new feature, Bing group program manager Tony Chor says that "many searches" begin from pages users are on while browsing the Web, and that this feature eases that behavior from within the Bing iPad application. The data behind that claim is that users can save up to nine steps with Lasso compared with having to use Apple's copy-and-paste method, Chor said.

Along with the Lasso feature, the company's app is being updated to let users go back to see the past week's worth of Bing home page images, as well as see multiple days worth of movie showtime listings at once.