THANKS OBAMA! Prez predicted iPhone mania back in 2007

Future president Barack Obama was one of the first non-Apple staff to see the iPhone, according to a new political memoir, and predicted it would be a huge smash.

According to a new book from former Obama staffer David Axelrod, then-Senator Obama met with the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and got a special preview of the phone at the 2007 Macworld conference

"If it were legal, I would buy a boatload of Apple stock," Obama was quoted as saying. "This thing is going to be really big,"

Obama, of course, would go on to win the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidential election. He was re-elected in 2012. Meanwhile, the iPhone would become the engine that drove Apple to become the biggest consumer electronics vendor on the market. iPhone sales helped the company record an $18bn profit in the last quarter alone.

Though it may seem like this was a simple enough observation to make, keep in mind that the 2007 iPhone was far from a sure thing.

The handset, jokingly dubbed the "Jesus phone" had no third-party applications, used clunky Edge wireless broadband, and - thanks to an exclusivity deal Apple signed to subsidize costs - could only run on AT&T's wireless network.

While he may have called the iPhone's success, Obama himself doesn't get to be an Apple fanboi while he's in the Oval Office. Security requirements keep the president of the US chained to a specially-designed BlackBerry handset. ®