Information Appliance

In general terms, an information appliance or information device is any machine or device that is usable for the purposes of computing, telecommunicating, reproducing, and presenting encoded information in myriad forms and applications. The common technical usage of "information appliance" (IA) is more specific — i.e., an appliance that is specially designed to perform a specific user-friendly function —such as playing music, photography, or editing text.

Typical examples are smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Information appliances partially overlap in definition with, or are sometimes referred to as smart devices, embedded systems, mobile devices or wireless devices.