Is Obama No Longer The BlackBerry President?
Shortly after Obama was elected, members of the media were obsessed with the modern “tech-savvy” candidate who was addicted to his BlackBerry smart phone.
In 2010, President Obama revealed that he receives a daily prayer devotional on his BlackBerry.
I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Obama was quoted in a January 2009 New York Times story on the issue. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”
“Later that month the Time proudly reported: “President Obama won the first fight of his presidency: He can keep his BlackBerry.”
From that point on, Obama was known as The BlackBerry President, as the media continued to geek out about the president’s use of the device. The branding stuck, evidenced when U2 pop star Bono referred to Obama as “the first BlackBerry president” after meeting him about Africa.
But today, the New York Times included several references to the President’s iPad, in a story about his reading habits, and made no mention of the Blackberry.
Mr. Obama is a voracious consumer of news, reading newspapers and magazines on his iPad and in print and dipping into blogs and Twitter. He regularly gives aides detailed descriptions of articles that he liked, and he can be thin-skinned about those that he does not.
He typically begins his day upstairs in the White House reading the major newspapers, including his hometown Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, mostly on his iPad through apps rather than their Web sites. He also skims articles that aides e-mail to him, with the subject line stating the publication and the headline (like “WSJ: Moody’s Downgrades Banks”).
During the day, Mr. Obama reads newspapers on hisiPad and print copies of magazines like The Economist and The New Yorker. On most Air Force One flights, he catches up on the news on his iPad.
Although, speaking about his tablet, it is unusual for the President’s BlackBerry not to be mentioned.
