Constituents and journalists alike have been waiting for the day that a staff member finally wrestles Donald Trump’s Twitter-enabled phone out of his hands and drops it into a shredder.
Sadly, instead of ditching his social media habit, Trump is merely upping his game, trading in his unsecured Android phone for an Apple iPhone, with the Twitter app already installed. Trump aide Dan Scavino confirmed.
This should be a relief, at least, to those around the President who were concerned that his out-of-the-box Android phone was an easy target for hackers—and that it might be used to share classified information, exposing Trump to the same concerns that dogged Hillary Clinton, who used her own private server to handle confidential information.
But the encryption-enabled iPhone is also an ironic development for the President, who decried Apple during his campaign, calling for a boycott of all Apple products, after the company refused to help the FBI crack the San Bernardino terrorists’
His concern? Apple iPhones were so well encrypted that they posed a hurdle to terror investigations. Fortunately for the President, that solid encryption—and dedication to privacy—is an asset when you’re the leader of the free world.
At the time, the President was, somewhat ironically, dictating his Tweets to a staffer who was using an iPhone (even though the President reportedly preferred Samsung for himself).
Now, though, it seems he’s fully committed.
Perhaps Apple’s recent thaw on sharing private information—they were very forthcoming when the FBI and Dallas Police department requested a warrant for an iPhone user’s iCloud account just weeks ago—was the final argument in favor of switching phones.
Of course, Apples are not worry-free. Even President Obama’s Apple iPhone was a stripped down model he could use mostly to check email and play games. Trump’s might be similarly outfitted (except, of course, with working a working Twitter app).
Journalists who were hoping and praying for Trump to stop using Twitter will just have to find another way to cope. There’s a robot now that will print his Tweets and burn them—that could help—and Twitter says its working on advancements to its “mute” and “block” features.