Apple, IBM, Japan Post team up to improve elderly care

The middle photo is like a metaphor for the whole project.

The program will provide iPads with apps designed to help seniors manage day-to-day lives

That's hilarious! Most of the old people in Japan that I know can't even work a TV remote, so how the heck will an iPad help them? What they need is more care staff to lessen the bourdon on family members and greater welfare support. They do not need technology they cannot use!

App development by .....IBM?! Who in their right mind would pick a sclerotic giant like IBM for mobile software development?

Oh right, this is Japan. Big, old company = good. Agile start-up = risky = bad.

Just marketing nothing more. Apple and iPads are like Starbucks, just sick of seeing it everywhere when its nothing special. Yucho probably don't need these greedy American companies - they should have kept it home grown

In Japan, many people don't use smartphone, especially elderly. Japan Post will end up buying unnecessary toys. Besides, why don't they use the suffering Japanese makers? J makers know how Japanese elderly live. I think US bought J buraucrats.

That a great idea but I can not see any pensioner parting with Y5000 per months for data. I think this is just another way of promoting their name has a community friend corporation. I assume that they team up their plan this with some telco. It would came at no surprise to me if the Telco came up with the idea and approach Microsoft, Samsam and Apple. 30,000,00 x Y5000 = Y150,000,000,000 per month x 12 months = That a lot of Yen to be made!!! if all these pensioner take up the offer

tinawatanabe: "In Japan, many people don't use smartphone,"

And once again you make general assumptions about all of Japan based on your own personal knowledge and beliefs. The percentage of people in Japan using smart phones as their mobile devices was 42% in 2013, and was somewhere around 60% last year, tina. And given that Japan is one of the largest mobile markets in the world, that is a LOT of people, so you are dead wrong to say many people don't use smart phones. The elderly probably don't, you are right about that, but I don't see you or others on here kicking up a fuss when electronics companies go in with dancing robots or robot seals/dogs or other knick-knacks that make the people happy, so why the stink about Apple, IBM, and Japan Post teaming up?

"Besides, why don't they use the suffering Japanese makers?"

Same reason why they shouldn't prop up the aging agricultural district here simply for nationalistic purposes over the practical and logical: because the 'suffering Japanese makers' do not know how to make products that appeal to people, obviously, and cannot adapt to be competitive. Why would they choose inferior products that won't help the elderly just because they are Japanese?

smith I said the old Japanese don't use smartphone.

This is a part of a large US scheme, first made Japan post private (althogh US post is public) and cracked into Japan's saving money and insurance, and siphon all the money and destory Japan again. Then US goes look for next target. They don't care Japanese people.

tinawatanabe: "smith I said the old Japanese don't use smartphone."

No, you said "many people in Japan don't use smartphone". That is word-for-word what you said. You then added, "ESPECIALLY elderly" thereafter. That's a BIG difference from "the old Japanese don't use smartphone", tina.

"This is a part of a large US scheme, first made Japan post private (althogh US post is public) and cracked into Japan's saving money and insurance, and siphon all the money and destory Japan again."

Excuse me? Privatizing Japan's postal system was Koizumi's idea, not the US' idea, and certainly not so they could steal Japan's savings and "destroy Japan again", whatever that means.

"They don't care Japanese people."

Once again you speak on behalf of all Japan with the conspiracy theories and how Japanese feel.

Noble713

App development by .....IBM?! Who in their right mind would pick a sclerotic giant like IBM for mobile software development?

Hello? We are in 2015. IBM has long left the personal computer field and now is a powerhouse in the corporate computing. Proof is the company partnering with Apple and Japan Post. BTW, if you haven't read news in the last two years, IBM and Apple will launch softwares dedicated to businesses. This one in Japan can be a test.

If seniors don't know how to use iPads, then educate them with seminars & free classes offerings at every single senior centers etc.... Offering free user education should be included as package deal for purchase as well as free unlimited, non-expiring support after purchase. Yes, it might be teaching old dogs new tricks but so what? Seniors have time and if they have will to learn, it might be a win-win situation. It might open up their world in positive way then watching TV garbage day & night.

I know this. If you give away iPads to Pensioner. of course they will except them even if they don,t know to used them. They will except them but they won,t buy data to run the iPad. Once they realise that it will cost Y5000 a month for data they will give the iPad to the grand children. Which in turn, will boost data cost to the their perents household budget. This is about increasing profits for a Telco. Apple will still make a profit on each unit given away because the telco will pay for each unit that using their data.