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AP photo
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., checks his BlackBerry in St. Louis during his presidential campaign in July.

Exactly what would a Presidential mobile look like? by Devin Coldewey at CrunchGear imagines safeguards and features a mobile device for a head of state would have to have. Security, certainly, but also,

What about the interface and capabilities? First, he'd want email. Obviously it wouldn't just get president@whitehouse.gov (I have a FilePlanet account under that address), but a couple special addresses which in all likelihood already exist: probably one personal, one policy-related, and one "Batphone" style super-secret address that is likewise known by only 30 or 40 people in the world. IM? Probably not, and similarly text messaging seems superfluous. He's just going to have to get used to tweeting from his laptop. Mapping probably won't be necessary either; I doubt the president ever really needs to look for coffee in his area, or ask for directions. Games and random apps can probably go, although depending on what the phone runs there wouldn't be any harm in having Tetris or things like a notepad app or to-do list on there. They could even be custom made.

All of us raised with the old James Bond and his toys -- "new Bond" Daniel Craig's resemblance to Putin is menacing, but the clever tech in Sean Connery's kit was much more fun -- could raise the ante considerably.

Of course, we'll never know about the coolest top-secret features Obama may be offered. He mostly wants to keep in touch with advisors and friends, and might reject kid locators and voice-to-text emailing.

Commenters keep the options going -- including, "Would securing his emails require the distribution of secured devices to those he wants to communicate with?"

Related: NYT sniffs (The High Security Risk Attached to Obama's Belt),

The BlackBerry no doubt endears Mr. Obama to one element of his core constituency: hard-working, tech-obsessed professionals whose fingers are painfully cramped from trying to type on small keys. In a sense, then, the BlackBerry is no different from the accessories that other presidents used to help them relate to their political base, like Ronald Reagan's cowboy hats and jeans.

But those fashion statements seem less risky than a BlackBerry; it's harder to hack pants.