Handheld devices (also known as handhelds) are pocket-sized computing devices that are rapidly gaining popularity as the access to information in every walk of life becomes more and more mission critical. Along with mobile computing devices such as laptops and smartphones, PDAs represent the new frontier of computing as desktop computers find less and less favour among every day users.
A smartphone is any electronic handheld device that integrates the functionality of a mobile phone, personal digital assistant or other information appliance. This is often achieved by adding telephone functions to an existing PDA or putting "smart" capabilities, such as PDA functions, into a mobile phone.
The key feature of a smartphone is that one can install additional applications to the device. The applications can be developed by the manufacturer of the handheld device, by the operator or by any other third-party software developer.
The first smartphone was called Simon designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product at COMDEX. It was released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games. Customers could also use a stylus to write directly on its screen to create facsimiles and memos.
As of 2004 smartphones are an increasingly large part of the mobile phone market. According to analyst house Canalys smart phone shipments increased over 100% from 2004Q2 to 2005Q2, with over twelve million devices shipped in the latter period. In a couple years, it is likely that most phones sold will be considered "smart", except for disposable phones.
Most common operating systems are Symbian (developed by a group of renowned mobile phone solution providers), Palm OS (developed by PalmSource), Windows Mobile (formerly known as Windows CE, and developed by Microsoft), BREW (technically a platform developed by Qualcomm), and Linux.
Personal digital assistants (PDAs or palmtops) are handheld devices that were originally designed as personal organizers, but became much more versatile over the years. A basic PDA usually includes date book, address book, task list, memo pad, clock, and calculator software. Many PDAs can now access the Internet via Wi-Fi, cellular or Wide-Area Networks (WANs) or Bluetooth technology. One major advantage of using PDAs is their ability to synchronize data with a PC or home computer.
A mobile phone, also known as a cell phone, smart phone, mobile, or hand phone, is an electronic telecommunications device with the same basic capability as a conventional fixed line telephone, but which is also entirely portable and is not required to be connected with a wire to the telephone network. Most current mobile phones connect instead to the network using a wireless radio wave transmission technology. The mobile phone communicates via a network of base stations which are in turn linked to the conventional telephone network.
In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, a mobile phone can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, packet switching for access to the Internet and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video.