Local
Get the latest news in local search marketing each week.
Microsoft Translator App Comes To iOS & Android With Wearable Support
Microsoft launches a new mobile app for real-time translation to compete with Google's Google Translate app.
Barry Schwartz on August 10, 2015 at 9:23 am
More
Microsoft has released the Microsoft Translate app for iOS and Android, which brings them in tight competition with Google’s popular Google Translate software.
The big noticeable difference is that Microsoft enabled the features for both platform’s wearable products, Apple Watch and Android Wear.
I tested the iOS Google Translate app on my iPhone and Apple Watch, and it works pretty well.
The iOS app for the iPhone offers a way to both speak and type your words, while the Apple Watch only offers the speak-to-translate option. Not all languages will talk back to you with the translation. Speaking in English and asking to translate to Spanish will read back the Spanish translation; asking it to speak the Hebrew translation does not work.
In addition, you cannot speak to translate in all languages, such as Hebrew, but you can in many.
The app supports the following languages: Arabic, Bosnian (Latin), Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese(S), Chinese(T), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong Daw, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Quer’etaro Otomi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese and Welsh, and Yucatec Maya.
But the speak-to-translate option only supports about 30 of these 50 languages listed.
Google Translate is similar, in that it does not currently offer the speak-to-translate function in all of the supported text-to-translate options.
Here are some iOS screen shots of the app on the phone and watch:
For more details, check out the CNET coverage.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here.
Related Articles
Google Translate App Adds 20 More Languages To The Instant Visual Translation Feature
Google Translate App Gets Improved Picture & Conversational Translation
Report: Google Translate To Provide Real-Time Translation Via App
Google Translate Shows Santa Claus Picture As Easter Egg
Bing MobileChannel: LocalMicrosoft: MobileTop News
(Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)
Sponsored