It’s always interesting to see which phone POTUS is using and how the phone has been set up. In 2009, we told you that then-President Barack Obama was using a BlackBerry 8830 World Edition loaded with special software. This worked out fine for Obama who was famously known to love BlackBerry handsets. A deal with the NSA was made allowing the president to employ his BlackBerry phone for personal use and carry a Windows Mobile-powered Selectra Edge, based on the Palm Treo 750, for secure communications.
Eventually, the president appeared to be getting bored with the ‘Berry platform. Additionally, his daughters were iPhone users which might have made the president a little jealous. Even though he was gifted an iPad 2 by the late Steve Jobs in 2011, two years later Obama told a room full of kids at a White House Summit that he was not allowed to own an Apple iPhone “for security reasons.”
When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, we now had a president who used his smartphone to communicate with the public over Twitter (now “X”). Trump used two different iPhones. The tweets written by Trump were typed on one of the phones which obviously had the iOS Twitter app installed. The second iPhone used by the real estate mogul turned politician was set up to make and take phone calls only. His phones reportedly carried an unsecured microphone and a camera.
Trump’s lock screen was spotted on his phone last night—and it was a photo of himself. Is that not one of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed things you’ve ever seen??? Not his family, not his kids, but himself. Wtf… pic.twitter.com/Ge2h9KqpTF
— Harry Sisson (@harryjsisson) May 31, 2025
After losing the 2020 election, Trump made a triumphant return to the White House earlier this year and a recent photograph of the president holding his phone reveals that Trump is once again relying on an iPhone. The president’s communications needs are handled by the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). As a result, any tariff-based price hike imposed on future iPhone models won’t require the president to personally pay more for a new iPhone.
Speaking of the president’s iPhone, Reuters took a pretty clear photo of the lock screen on Trump’s device. The image, which appeared on several tweets, showed a picture of a stern-looking Trump pointing his finger at the camera. Depending on where you stand politically, you could say that the photo shows a strong president threatening to take some sort of action to defend the country. Those who are not a fan of Trump are calling this “one of the most narcissistic, self-absorbed things you’ve ever seen…Not his family, not his kids, but himself.”
Some random thoughts. Just wondering what the president thinks about Apple Intelligence and whether he has used it. If Google were to build Pixels in the U.S., would the president drop his iPhone for a Pixel?
