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In April 2001, there were 17 million PDAs versus 100,000 ebook readers worldwide, according to a Seybold Report available online. In 2005, PDAs were replaced with smartphones.
# The Palm Pilot
The Palm Pilot was launched as the first PDA in March 1996, with 23 million Palm Pilots sold between 1996 and 2002. In July 2002, the Palm Reader was also available for computers, and Palm Digital Media, Palm’s digital bookstore (later renamed Palm eBook Store), was offering 5,500 ebooks in several languages. 10,000 ebooks were available in 2003.
Some book professionals were worried about reading on such a small screen, whereas PDA users found that the screen size wasn't a problem at all to read a good book on a pocket-size multifunction device.
# The eBookMan
Franklin’s eBookMan was a handheld device to read books on the Franklin Reader, with standard PDA functions (calendar, voice recorder, etc.). In October 2000, the device received the eBook Technology Award at the International Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany. Three models (EBM-900, EBM-901, EBM-911) were available in early 2001, with a RAM size of 8 or 16 MB, and a backlit or not LCD screen. The screen was large compared to other handheld devices, but only in black and white, unlike the Pocket PC and some Palm Pilots. People could also listen to audiobooks and MP3 music files. In October 2001, the eBookMan offered the Mobipocket Reader alongside the Franklin Reader, and the Franklin Reader was also available for the Pocket PC and for models from Psion, Palm and Nokia. Franklin developed a digital bookstore while partnering with other companies, for example with Audible.com to access its collection of 4,500 audiobooks.
# Other PDAs
Palm stayed the leader – 36.8% of PDAs were Palm Pilots in 2002 — despite a fierce competition from Microsoft’s Pocket PC and from the PDAs of Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Handspring, Toshiba and Casio. The main platforms were Palm OS (for 55% of PDAs) and Pocket PC (for 25,7% of PDAs).
People reading on their PDAs could use Mobipocket Reader (available since March 2000), Microsoft Reader (April 2000), Palm Reader (March 2001), Acrobat Reader (May 2001 for Palm Pilot, and December 2001 for Pocket PC), and finally Adobe Reader (May 2003) that replaced Acrobat Reader to read both standard PDF files and secure PDF files of copyrighted books.