Obama Not Allowed To Have An iPhone

Some of you may know that U.S. president Barack Obama is very fond of BlackBerry smartphones, but since he became the president of the United States, he doesn’t have a say when it comes to choosing a smartphone. The president of the world’s biggest economy cannot use an Apple smartphone. The reason is simple: even though some people consider the iPhone to be one of the safest smartphones available on the market, the Secret Service does not allow Barack Obama to use a smartphone from Apple due to security concerns; at least that is what Obama told to a group of people visiting the White House last week on Wednesday.

AFP reports that according to Barack Obama, a super secure smartphone from Canadian telecommunication company BlackBerry is the only smartphone he is allowed to use as the head of the United States of America. “I’m not allowed for security reasons to have an iPhone [...]” – that is what Barack Obama said during an event that promotes his health care initiative (also known as Obamacare). He also mentioned that both of his daughters (Malia and Sasha) own an iPhone and they spend a lot of their time using their smartphones from Apple.

Considering how strict security detail is with the president of the United States, this news doesn’t really surprise us. Not to mention that Barack Obama wasn’t even allowed to own a BlackBerry by the Secret Service; he had to fight in order to convince them to allow him to keep one and the Secret Service didn’t like it. The permission to use a BlackBerry however, came with a cost: Barack Obama is only allowed to use his BlackBerry for communication with about ten individuals, which eh says is “no fun”.

A September report from the Washington Post said that presidents invariably fall behind times when it comes to using the latest gadgets because “there are some legitimate security and legal constraints”; this means that it is almost impossible for presidents to use digital services just like any other consumer.

Apple’s sixth iteration of its mobile Operating System, iOS 6, was granted a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 level 1 validation, which means that a few government agencies are allowed to approve use of special devices running iOS 6; however, that doesn’t mean all government officials can use iOS 6 devices. And in the case of the president of the United States, there are still a lot of things that need to be approved to allow the use of an iOS 6 based device.

While it’s possible that some people will interpret Barack Obama’s remark as a hint that the federal government could revise the policies regarding the issue, that was not what the U.S. president was trying to say. He only intended to admit that he wasn’t as up to speed with technology as his listeners.

Barack Obama said: “Now my suspicion is that for a lot of you, between your cable bill and your phone bill, you’re spending more than $100 a month [...] The idea that you wouldn’t want to make sure you’ve got the health security and financial security that comes with health insurance for less than that price, you guys are smarter than that. Most young people are as well”. You can watch the video here.

This is not the first time that Barack Obama brings up Apple’s iPhone it his recent rhetoric. Two months ago the U.S. president said that his health care initative (Obamacare) should not be judged too harsh for the initial errors and compared it to how Apple fixes bugs in its mobile Operating System, iOS: “I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t [fix a glitch]. That’s not how we do things in America“.