Late yesterday the Nikkei Asian Review published an interview with Masako Wakamiya, who is thought to the world's oldest known iPhone app developer. In the interview, she discussed topics including her first computer and her meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

According to the report, Masako Wakamiya obtained her first personal computer at age 58, just ahead of her retirement from a bank. Little did she know that she was beginning a journey that would make her the world's oldest known iPhone app developer, at 81.

Now 84, Wakamiya calls herself an IT evangelist and encourages other seniors to use digital technology to enrich their lives. She writes books while spreading her message on the lecture circuit in Japan and abroad.

Wakamiya discusses how she familiarized herself with early smartphones, and soon came up with the idea of a game based on Japan's annual doll festival, 'hinamatsuri'.

There were no apps that old people found amusing. I decided to make a game in which old people could beat young people. I thought that arranging dolls for the hinamatsuri would be a good concept.

I drew up a plan and asked the president of an app development company in Miyagi Prefecture to produce the game. I had become acquainted with him through volunteering in the area hit by the March 2011 earthquake.

He said, "May I suggest that you do it by yourself?" I wrote the program at home in Kanagawa Prefecture, while learning from him over Skype. The smartphone game, called Hinadan, was completed just before the hinamatsuri in 2017.

Coding an app at home whilst being guided over Skype by the president of an app development company would be a noble achievement for almost all of us, let alone an 81-year-old lady.

Her endeavors gained her recognition to the point that she was contacted by Apple in Japan, who invited her to the U.S. Read the full Nikkei Asian Review report (Note: it's behind a pay wall).