Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant (PDA) was a multi-purpose mobile device which functioned as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced in the early 2010s by the widespread adoption of smartphones. In particular, smartphones based on iOS and Android took their place, causing a rapid decline in PDA usage.

A PDA had a flat-screen display; many later PDAs also had color displays, and instead of navigation buttons, resistive touchscreens; or even capacitive touchscreens. Most models also had audio capabilities, allowing usage as a portable media player, and also enabling some of them to be used as telephones. By the early 2000s, nearly all PDA models had the ability to access the Internet via Wi-Fi; these models generally included a web browser.

The concept of the PDA was eventually combined with that of the cell phone, the camera, and the GPS navigation system to produce the smartphone. To a lesser extent, the tablet computer also replaced PDAs, offering larger screens and newer operating systems.

The first PDA, the Organiser, was released in 1984 by Psion, followed by Psion's Series 3, in 1991. The latter began to resemble the more familiar PDA style, including a full keyboard. The term PDA was first used on 7 January 1992 by Apple Inc. CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton.

In 1994, IBM introduced the first PDA with analog cellular phone functionality, the IBM Simon, which can also be considered the first smartphone. Then in 1996, Nokia introduced a PDA with digital cellphone functionality, the 9000 Communicator.

Another early entrant in this market was Palm, with a line of PDA products which began in March 1996. Palm would eventually be the dominant vendor of PDAs until the rising popularity of Pocket PC devices in the early 2000s.

By the mid-2000s, most PDAs had morphed into smartphones as classic PDAs without cellular radios were increasingly becoming uncommon. Devices such as the Palm Treo (resembling a bar phone) and the Kyocera 7135 (resembling a traditional flip phone) began merging the concept on a PDA with the concept of a cell phone. Some such devices even had built-in cameras and/or GPS capabilities, making them resemble smartphones more than PDAs.

A typical PDA has a touchscreen for navigation, a memory card slot for data storage, and IrDA, Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi. However, some PDAs may not have a touchscreen, using soft keys, a directional pad, and a numeric keypad or a thumb keyboard for input. To have the functions expected of a PDA, a device's software typically includes an appointment calendar, a to-do list, an address book for contacts, a calculator, and some sort of memo (or "note") program. PDAs with wireless data connections also typically include an email client and a Web browser, and may or may not include telephony functionality.