President Trump reportedly trades in his Android phone, believed to be his primary tweeting device, for a Secret Service-approved device
from Obama's inauguration in 2009 Avi Selk / Washington Post : Donald Trump made it to the White House. His treasured phone may not. Michael Hafford / Refinery29 : Donald Trump Gets Secure Phone, Will Hopefully Use It Eric Abent / SlashGear : Trump Tweets may soon be filtered as secret service steps in Paul Morris / Redmond Pie : President Donald Trump Ditches Android For More Secure Option Roger Fingas / AppleInsider : Security concerns force President Trump to ditch Android phone AJ Dellinger / International Business Times : President Trump Ditches Android Device For A More Secure Smartphone Seth Fiegerman / CNNMoney : Twitter transfer of power: Trump gets @POTUS Matt Hamblen / TechConnect : Trump's phone replaced with more secure device Katie Collins / CNET : Trump trades in Android phone for Secret Service-approved device Rob Thubron / TechSpot : Trump hands in his Android smartphone for a more secure device as he prepares to take office Jacob Brogan / Slate : Trump Finally Sacrifices Something That Matters to Him—His Phone Luke Stangel / Silicon Valley Business Journal : Android still isn't secure enough for the White House Timothy B. Lee / Vox : The Secret Service is taking away Trump's beloved Android smartphone Maya Kosoff / Vanity Fair : Donald Trump Gets a Special New Phone for His Big New Job Brian Heater / TechCrunch : Trump ditched his Android phone and probably won't give you his new number Alexandra Arici / AndroidGuys : Donald Trump says bye to his Galaxy phone, welcomes highly encrypted handset Todd Haselton / TechnoBuffalo : Donald Trump ditches his Android smartphone Stephen Hall / 9to5Google : How to watch Trump's inauguration live on YouTube, Android, Chrome OS, and Android TV Stan Schroeder / AOL : Trump had to give up the Samsung phone he uses for tweeting Quentyn Kennemer / Phandroid : Donald Trump uses an Android phone, and it isn't secure enough for his presidency Thomas Phippen / The Daily Caller : Trump Gets Secret Service-Approved Phone For Twitter Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire : As Trump becomes president, @POTUS Twitter feed fueled by Obama goes blank — for now Alexandra Vaidos / Softpedia News : Donald Trump to Tweet from “Super Secure” Phone After Ditching His Android Inquirer : Donald Trump is going to swap his Android phone for a secure one Philip Elmer-DeWitt : Trump loses his Twitter phone Lauren Goode / The Verge : President Trump's first White House petition: release your tax returns New York Times : A Trump Administration, With Obama Staff Members Filling In the Gaps Kate Bevan / Naked Security : News in brief: Note 7 fire cause to be revealed; Trump gives up cellphone; Cortana moves on to Android lockscreen Lucinda Shen / Fortune : Donald Trump Has Reportedly Given Up His Android Smartphone Khari Johnson / VentureBeat : First WhiteHouse.gov petition calls on Trump to release tax returns Tweets: Jonathan Swan / @jonathanvswan : When - source of mine -conservative leader - called she asked to speak to PEOTUS, assuming she'd be patched thru. The “operator” was Trump. http://twitter.com/... Maggie Haberman / @maggienyt : For wks during transition, everyone frm CEOs to foreign leaders to reporters called Trump on his cell. He answered. http://apnews.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Days before taking office, Trump had already told The Sunday Times he would keep tweeting from @realDonaldTrump, which turned the question of what device that account runs on into a national-security story rather than a gadget one. The reported trade-in of his consumer Android for a Secret Service-approved handset was the White House's answer.
The swap's durability is the real question this coverage settles: within a week he was reportedly back on his unsecured Android for evening TV-tweeting, and by 2018 sources described him having gone as long as five months without a security check of the phone despite aides' protests. The eventual endgame of the personal-hardware thread is the $499 T1 Phone and Trump Mobile MVNO teased by the Trump Organization in 2025.
First-order effects
- The Secret Service gains nominal control over the President's communications endpoint, but the named user keeps the same @realDonaldTrump channel, so only the hardware changes hands.
Second-order effects
- Aides' security recommendations are shown to be advisory only: the follow-up reporting of resumed unsecured tweeting within days makes enforcement, not procurement, the binding constraint on presidential phone security.
Third-order effects
- A president's insistence on personally controlled devices becomes a durable pattern in this corpus — from the 2017 swap through repeated rebuffs to eventually shipping his own branded handset and carrier — pointing toward personal-brand infrastructure outlasting institutional IT policy.
The trend: Presidential communications technology is drifting away from institutional control toward personally owned, brand-aligned hardware, with security compliance treated as negotiable.