Microsoft releases a bunch of productivity apps for smartwatches

Perhaps the star of Microsoft’s announcement is the totally new Translator app, available for both Apple Watch and Android Wear.

So how does it stack up?

On the wearables, the app is capable of reading out translated texts in Chinese and Spanish (Simplified) and all other supported languages.

Microsoft Translate can provide instant translations to and from 50 languages including the usual ones like Spanish, German, and French, but also less commonly supported tongues like Urdu, Hungarian, and Greek.

If you haven’t tried Microsoft Translator yet, you need to do so because it’s fantastic. Google’s Translate app is more advanced in one respect.

In addition, the users of Apple Watch smartwatch will soon get the ability to install Yammer private social network, which will benefit from iOS 8’s Handoff feature with an iPhone.

The new Apple Watch app has the same feel. Google does not make a version of its app for Android Wear smartwatches, offering an advantage to Microsoft.

OneDrive is making an appearance on Android Wear watches too, harnessing the images you supposedly store on the cloud to beautify your watch face.

While the Translator app could be useful for vacation travelers, it’s easy to see how business users might benefit from it as well. You can even read the full email right on your wrist instead of settling for snippets. But in case you do want to frantically type, the companion smartphone apps do fulfill that urge. Human spoken languages are a lot different from computer code in that words can have many meanings based on the context of the other words surrounding them.