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Even before he won the presidency, Donald Trump fired off tweets at companies, reporters, lawmakers and critics of all stripes from an Android phone that many experts have come to fear is a major security risk.
But it appears Trump has switched (at least for now) to a new iPhone — a device he previously threatened to boycott in the months before Election Day.
From the campaign trail to the Oval Office, reporters have kept a close eye on the tweets coming from the @realDonaldTrump account, and not just for their news value: The belief was that tweets coming from Trump’s Android device reflect that they had been written by him, as opposed to his White House aides.
In recent days, though, Trump’s tweets have primarily come from an iPhone. And that’s because, in the words of Dan Scavino, the president’s director of social media, the president has a new smartphone.
.@POTUS @realDonaldTrump has been using his new iPhone for the past couple of weeks here on Twitter. Yes, it is #POTUS45 reading & tweeting!
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) March 29, 2017
Contrast that with Trump’s harsh criticism of Apple in 2016 as the company battled the FBI, which tried to compel the iPhone maker to break its own security features. At the time, investigators sought to access data on a password-protected iPhone tied to the San Bernardino terrorist attack, but Apple resisted, arguing it would set a dangerous precedent that jeopardized all smartphone users’ privacy and security.
Trump made his views clear: “Apple ought to give the security for that phone,” he said at a February 2016 campaign stop in South Carolina. “What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such a time as they give that security number. How do you like that? I just thought of it. Boycott Apple.”
Boycott all Apple products until such time as Apple gives cellphone info to authorities regarding radical Islamic terrorist couple from Cal
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2016
Early on, Trump and Apple had something of a rocky relationship. The company withdrew from backing the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland that officially selected Trump as the party’s presidential candidate, sources previously told me, and CEO Tim Cook later raised money for Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.
But the two sides have tried to mend their relationship in recent months. Cook has connected with the Trump administration and its top aides, including Jared Kushner, at a dinner in Washington in January 2017. And he joined the president before his inauguration for the so-called “tech summit” at Trump Tower.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
