The Beginning of the PDA

Also known as a palmtop computer, the personal digital assistant is a mobile device used to organize your life in various way. It can connect to the Internet, take notes and hold contracts. Color screens are found don the newer styles and have audio capabilities which allows them to also be mobile phones and web browsers. WiFi, intranets, internets and wireless Wide Area Networks can all be accessed by a PDA. Touchscreen technology is also employed by many of today’s PDAs. Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada first used the term PDA in January of 1992. He was at that time referring to the Apple Newton. Nokia, in 1966, introduced the 9000 Communicator which was the first mobile phone with total PDA functionality. It spawned a category of phones called the smartphone and grew to be the world’s best-selling PDA. The vast majority of PDAs today are smartphones selling more than 150 million with around 3 million sold per year of non-phone (“stand alone”) PDAs. Typically today, the smartphones are known as the Apple iPhone, Nokia N-Series and the RIM BlackBerry.