President Barack Obama Is An iPad 2 User

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A recent bit of photography from the White House’s Flickr account released a fact that most of us probably weren’t aware of–Barack Obama favors the iPad 2 as a computing platform.

We all know that President Obama likes the tech–we’ve seen the man over at Facebook headquarters, touring robot building plants, and we’ve even seen the fracas that resulted when his Blackberry was threatened back when he first took office–and now, we get one more look, discovering via White House photography that Obama is one of those folks who’s adding to the massive data transmission rate from tablet PCs.

One photo in particular, which you can see above via the White House Flickr account, shows Obama carrying his iPad 2, complete with gray polyurethane smart cover. Undoubtedly, it’s also carrying a whole raftload of special features not commonly available, especially some kind of killer encryption on the 3G transmission system.

And I should note here that, though I don’t personally have much in the way of plans to get an iPad myself, I would totally buy one if it came with that kind of encryption. Call it a bit retro but I favor the laptops–makes for easier typing.

A recent press conference saw a journalist asking Obama if he had his own computer, and though at the time his answer wasn’t exactly definitive, the intent was pretty clear–he did have his own computer somewhere. But no one really knew what kind until these photos showed up.

It’s kind of a shock to find that the president is actually using something many of us use every day, but at the same time, it really does make sense. They’re definitely a lot more portable than laptops, even if they don’t necessarily have the performance of laptops.  And for someone constantly on the move like a sitting president, well, portability trumps performance.