Personal digital assistant

Not to be confused with Virtual 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 and tablet computers. 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.

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