“It took the press a few days. But reporters eventually caught on to the fact that President Barack Obama was an early adapter of the new breed of super fitness watches,” Greg Robb reports for MarketWatch. “The Daily Mail was the first to notice the watch on St. Patricks Day when Obama met with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny in the Oval Office. Searching through photos of previous days of public appearances revealed the president first wearing the watch during a West Coast trip late last week.”
“The device is a Fitbit Surge that retails for $250,” Robb reports. “It comes with GPS tracking, in case the president gets lost by the Secret Service, can monitor heart rates during calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and can count the number of steps taken during a round of golf.”
Read more in the full article here.
In February, Kara Swisher reported for Re/code that Obama “talked about his tech gadgets and about one in particular that has piqued his interest: The not-yet-released Apple Watch.”
Swisher reported, “‘I don’t have a Fitbit yet, but I work out hard,’ he said. ‘Word is these Apple Watches might be a good companion for my workouts. So I’m gonna see, I’m gonna test it out. I don’t want to give [Apple CEO] Tim Cook too big of a plug here until I’ve actually seen the product, [but] he tells me it’s pretty good.'”
At the time, Swisher wrote, “Apple and Fitbit can now race to the post office to get their gear into his hands.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In less than a month (or sooner, if Tim Cook allows), he’ll be dropping that thing into the drawer forevermore.
Related article:
Obama airs support for Apple Watch and iPads – February 16, 2015
Obama got presidential iPad 2 from Steve Jobs ahead of public launch – October 3, 2011
It might be better for all involved if OBummer doesn’t give Tim Cook ‘a plug’
*groan*
He is an “early adapter” of that thing. He’ll be an “adopter” of the Apple Watch, which you don’t have to adapt to. 😉
The President of the US of A uses a BlackBerry and they don’t have a watch out for it yet.
Hmm this comment “[Fitbit Surge] can monitor heart rates during calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” makes me wonder if some vigilante hackers will be able to tap into heart monitor rates and use it as a lie detector so that people know when the president (any president) is lying, or more importantly, when they are telling the truth.
Don’t need heart rate monitor to tell if ANY president is lying. It’s a real simple process to determine that.
If ANY president’s lips are moving, they’re lying!
Ah so when a president says “read my lips” he (or she) means “read between my lips”.
Got it with a wink wink nudge nudge.
All good fun.
I’m sure the comment was a tongue in cheek reference by the author. The President’s Physician probably values the readings though.
It may even have any broadcast capability disabled and can only be read from a wired connection.
Oh boy, this should provide some interesting MDN polite discourse…
Does this mean we’re heading over to Starbucks?!?
Didn’t Steve order some 4000 cups of latte? As always, Steve was a man ahead of his time!… get it “time”, double entendre, Apple Watch… Sheesh…
It has been pretty quiet from the vitriolic right wingers, lately. Maybe Rush isn’t plugging MDN nowadays.
It also wakes him up so he’s not late to his 10am daily briefing.
Sigh.