With Microsoft's updated Outlook app, owners of smartwatches running Android Wear software can get email notifications, read messages and reply to them directly by voice or with pre-saved messages.
The latest update to Microsoft's Outlook Android app brings compatibility with Android Wear. Owners of Android-based wearables can now join their Apple Watch-wearing counterparts in receiving Outlook notifications directly on their watches.
With Microsoft's updated Outlook app, owners of smartwatches running Android Wear software can get email notifications, read messages and reply to them directly by voice or with pre-saved messages. All these functions have been available on the Apple Watch since August 2015, via the Outlook iOS application.
It remains to be seen when more applications from the Office suite will be brought to Android Wear. Currently, OneNote is the only other item in Microsoft's famous productivity package that's compatible with both mobile platforms. PowerPoint is already available on the Apple Watch, where users can flick through presentation slides at their leisure. Upcoming support for Android Wear is pretty much certain. Word and Excel, however, are, by definition, much more complex programs to export to this kind of device, no matter what mobile operating system they use.
Still, Microsoft is aiming to roll out its software suite to all mobile platforms, with high-quality versions of its various mobile applications for future wearables, from upcoming generations of Apple Watch to devices running Android Wear. That's a feat the software giant has already managed with another of its flagship products, Skype.
The Android Wear operating system is used in wearable devices including the Motorola Moto 360, LG's G Watch range, the Asus ZenWatch and Sony's SmartWatch 3. Note that Samsung uses its own in-house operating system for wearables, called Tizen.
The Microsoft Outlook application is available to download free from Apple's App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android).