{"id":3971,"date":"2011-06-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/personal-digital-assistant\/"},"modified":"2016-12-20T17:02:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T17:02:05","slug":"personal-digital-assistant","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda","title":{"rendered":"Personal Digital Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_personal_digital_assistant_mean\">What Does Personal Digital Assistant Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a portable device that functions as a personal information manager. PDAs are used for Web browsing, office applications, watching videos, viewing photos or as mobile phones. PDA model features vary, but current common features include touch screen displays, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, memory card slots, mobile software applications and multimedia support. PDAs usually include personal information managers for contacts and schedules and always come with software to synchronize desktop or cloud server information.\n<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_personal_digital_assistant\">Techopedia Explains Personal Digital Assistant<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It used to be that there was a well-defined line between a PDA and a cell phone. This is becoming less and less true as more mobile phones are smartphones.Based on growing similarities and common features and functions, the PDA and smartphone are nearly indistinguishable. Many recent PDA models are equipped with phone features, while smartphones have evolved into touch screen devices featuring personal information management capabilities The Apple Newton was the first device dubbed PDA during a 1992 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) presentation by John Sculley, Apple\u2019s former CEO. The Newton, Nokia 9000 Communicator and Palm Pilot are the most popular devices in PDA history (if you don&#8217;t consider smartphones to be PDAs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Personal Digital Assistant Mean? A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a portable device that functions as a personal information manager. PDAs are used for Web browsing, office applications, watching videos, viewing photos or as mobile phones. PDA model features vary, but current common features include touch screen displays, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, memory [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[217,236,219,257,220],"class_list":["post-3971","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-hardware","definitioncat-network-management","definitioncat-networks","definitioncat-personal-tech","definitioncat-wireless-and-mobile"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.8 (Yoast SEO v23.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Personal Digital Assistant and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Personal Digital Assistant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Personal Digital Assistant and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-20T17:02:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Personal Digital Assistant\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-08T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-20T17:02:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\"},\"wordCount\":208,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/4619\/personal-digital-assistant-pda\",\"name\":\"What is a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)? 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