What is a PDA? While the name PDA (an acronym for Personal
Digital Assistant) conjures up the iconic Palm Pilot for most
people, in reality it covers a very broad range of devices and
technology. In fact, PDAs have become so advanced and feature-
rich that the manufacturers themselves rarely refer to them as
PDAs, opting instead for broader labels such as “handheld
computers”, “smartphones” and “converged devices”. Indeed,
today’s PDAs often bear only a passing resemblance to those that
first populated the market over a decade ago. Originally
designed as replacements for paper-based day planners, PDAs
started as fairly simple electronic tools that would manage
appointments, telephone numbers, and short notes, utilizing an
innovating synchronization process that allowed the device and a
desktop computer to update each other with new information. Fast
forward to today and the typical PDA packs more computing power
in a tiny handheld package than the very desktop computers those
earlier units connected to. While