BlackBerry One
As predicted in this blog back in November last year, The Mangle can confirm that US President Barack Obama will be getting his own, specially-designed secure Blackberry – dubbed the “Blackberry One”. You can read about it in UK’s Register: “Obama awaiting super-secure BlackBerry delivery“.
While we got a couple of things wrong – we said it would be based on the 8700c model (see pictured design left), but it will be the Blackberry 8830 (see pictured design right) – we got most of it right. The Mangle had some details not yet confirmed in the press: only six units will be made, and the device itself will be secured using voice biometrics and a remote self-destruct capability. Understandably, some of this detail may never be released to the public, due to its obvious security implications.
Interestingly, Obama doesn’t want one of the touchscreen models, such as the Blackberry Bold or Storm. I wonder if this is a personal preference, or some sort of inherent security weakness in the touchscreen technology? Only time will tell. I wonder how hard the lobbyists from Apple worked to try and talk the White House into an “iPhone One”?
