Bing AJAX map control V7 Released

Performance:

• V7 is less than 1/3 the size of our v6.3 control. This helps V7 load faster than the previous control.
• V7 renders multiple points on a map up to 3 times faster than v6.3. This helps deliver more and faster information to users. T

Performance is based on internal tests of compressed controls, including all secondary JavaScript, CSS and image-files.

Other Significant New Features:

Optimized for mobile web. Built for mobile browsing. V7 delivers in these scenarios with a small control size, support for HTML5 and touch support for mobile devices.

Enhanced Bird’s eye. V7 introduces the new “Bird’s eye” to AJAX. It’s the same 45-degree perspective, viewable from all 4 compass directions imagery – enhanced to include, panning at all zoom levels, life-like building models in urban centers and 3D-like terrain features. This new experience is ripe to provide a differentiated and highly useful perspective to applications.

New map style. First seen on https://www.bing.com/maps, our new map style for “road” and “hybrid” modes is now the default map style for V7. This means that when you build a V7 app, you’ll have the opportunity to show it off on an updated canvas with improved look/feel, readability and interaction with data overlays. We’ve received some great customer feedback since its first debut and we’ll be incorporating that into an updated version soon.

All Bing Maps customers have the opportunity to opt-in to the new map style for testing or production “go live” scenarios across all controls/APIs (REST Services, SOAP Services and Silverlight Map Control opt-in also went live today). This opt-in period will end on April 30, 2011 and beginning on May 1, 2011, the new map style will become the default and only road style delivered across all Bing mapping services.

To learn more about all of the features and enhancements in V7, take a look at the Bing AJAX map control v7 SDK and the recent announcement regarding Bing.com/Maps.