Project PDA

Smartphone and Pda phone unites the purposes of a cellular phone with a "smart" information management appliance all inside a particular unit. Smartphones are the next generation of phone devices combining digital phone handset and wireless Internet connectivity with some PDA-style and mobile computer features.

Smartphone features tend to include Internet access, e-mail access, scheduling software, built-in camera, contact management, GPS navigation software and occasionally the ability to read business documents in a variety of formats such as PDF and Microsoft Office. In the CTIA conference held in Atlanta, Georgia in March 2004, incorporation of television into the smartphone was among the topics discussed.

The first smartphone was called Simon designed by IBM in 1992 and shown as a concept product that year at COMDEX, the communications industry trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada. 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 were an increasingly large part of the mobile telephone market. According to the analysts, Canalys, smartphone shipments increased more than 50 percent from the second quarter of 2005 to the second quarter of 2006 with nearly nineteen million devices shipped in the latter period http://www.canalys.com/pr/2006/r2006071.htm.

The convergence of a Cell Phone and a PDA. Usually runs an Operating System like Palm, Pocket PC, or Symbian. Also Known As: Converged Device, Cellphone / PDA Combination.

Eager to establish dominance in the world of mobility, Microsoft released another specification based on Windows CE 3.0 dubbed Microsoft Smartphone 2002. The term "Smartphone" isn't exclusive to Microsoft since other Smartphone operating systems exist, such as the Symbian OS.

Microsoft Smartphone devices as digital Internet phones with PDA-features whereas a Pocket PC Phone Edition device is a PDA with digital Internet phone features.