The PDA used to be a standalone device, but beginning a few years ago, manufacturers began marrying them with the mobile phone to create a new converged device—the smartphone. The idea was to create an all-in-one device that would let you make phone calls, organize your life, and connect to the Internet for e-mail, instant messaging, and Web browsing. Connection speeds and Internet browsing were slow at first, but the roll out of high-speed data networks has made browsing from a smartphone a more compelling experience. And while these new devices are not quite "always connected," they can connect to the Web quickly, any time they need to.

This capability has given rise to a variety of "connected applications" that grab data from the Internet and present it on your device for convenient use. Many of the first connected apps dealt with the kind of information you would find useful when you're out and about: maps, directions, and local search. But other types of connected apps quickly appeared, and in my mind, there are now four categories of connected apps:

Maps/directions/local search

Aggregators of RSS and other "push" content, including RSS feeds, podcasts, and vidcasts

Specialized applications that gather specific information about weather, stocks, currency exchange rates, etc.

Widget platforms, which are collections of a smaller, simpler, and narrower type of specialized application

In every case, these connected applications have advantages over simply using a mobile Web browser to get the information. Typically, mobile Web browsers are not only slower and more cumbersome to use, most of them are not totally compatible with Web sites that use the latest Internet technologies. On the other hand, a tailor-made connected app is well adapted to the small screen of your device and is engineered to handle the data from current online sources more efficiently. Finally, the major players in the industry are competing hard to create extremely useful connected apps.

Let's jump in and look at some examples of these apps, many of which are free. Of course, to take full advantage of them you'll need to have a phone plan that includes data, and this certainly can add to the expense of using your device. Also, it helps considerably to have a 3G device with a fast Internet connection.

Maps/directions/local search

The Internet giants obviously see mobile device users as a major new audience—and source for advertising dollars—so they're trying hard to give you tools that you'll use when you're out and about.

Live Search for Windows Mobile

m.live.com

Touch and non-touch screen

As was noted in this column two issues ago, Live Search offers local search, maps, directions, Web search, and "instant answers" to questions you might have. The local search feature lets you search for local businesses, points of interest, restaurants, hotels, stores, and more. Search results include address and telephone number. You can save the information to Contacts, get map directions, place a call, and more.

You can use voice input when you're doing a local search. Instead of typing in the name of a business, for example, you can simply press the Speak button and say the name (U.S. only). And you can also specify what city that business is located in, saying for example, "Starbucks Missoula," and it will return listings for Starbucks in Missoula. Or you can say, "bicycle Fairfield Iowa," and it will return listings for bike shops in that small Southeast Iowa town.