Fat Fingered Sumo Wrestlers Given iPads

The Japan Sumo Association is handing out about 60 iPads to training stables to help the wrestlers communicate because their fingers are too fat to use a regular mobile phone. From the article: "The iPad was chosen because the sumo association believed the device was big enough to cater to wrestler's fat fingers, unlike the smaller keys on mobile phones, according to reports."

Comments

Making calls on the way out?

[sznupi]

I'm sure those (usually / always quite horrible, so far) mobile phones for the elderly are also available in Japan...if anybody still wanted to make calls.

You know, those looking a bit like simple alphanumeric calculators, with enormous buttons.

Re:iPads are not phones

[Cicada7]

These are the exact reasons I'm waiting for a comparable Android tablet.

You get the watered down GUIfication element, where anyone can pick it up and it 'just works'

You also get the ability to really dig in via the ADB console or terminal apps.

I'm certainly no majority example, but this seems to me to be 'done right', and I'm excited to buy one for my girlfriend.

Until a good KB dock-type attachment comes out for Android tabs, however, I've got no real use for it - I spend a vast majority of my 'computing' time using the keyboard, to a point that I've gotten a full-size USB keyboard to attach to my laptop which also has a full-size keyboard that just isn't quite as comfortable.

Until I've got that same flexibility with a tablet, it's just not my thing. My girlfriend is of the opinion that iPads are too locked down, and therefore useless, and she's 1/10 the computer nerd that I am.

Re:How do other fat people use phones?

[Kyusaku Natsume]

The thing is that in Japan you can't talk on the phone onboard most public transport because it is forbidden or impolite but you can send text messages. The predictive text software in the iPad for japanese input method is one of the best implementations around. For sumo wrestlers, sure this would look like a godsend. For them, voice communication will be a nice added bonus, but not a deal breaker.