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After pulling a sort of coup in the digital music and phone market with iPod and iPhone, apple has sent its engineers to design a PDA, a project that was shelved years ago and which Apple is reviving now.

This would be the second time Apple has tried its hands in the PDA market, with the first being the Apple New MessagePad in the late 1990's, which never saw actual production.

It is now learned that Apple’s success in making a touch based phone and a new music player, Apple’s engineers are designing a touch based personal digital assistant (PDA). According to AppleIndider, source, Apple plans to leverage the multi-touch input technology in a considerably larger design than either of today's models; though similar in shape, it would be roughly 50 per cent larger than either existing touchscreen device and would have a sharper 720x480 resolution. Users may also have access to input tricks not seen on the iPhone or iPod, such as dragging and dropping information or cutting and pasting text, the sources claim.
Now, with the iPhone out, they're free to concentrate on the Apple PDA, which is believed to run Apple's Mac OS X. It's been described as a thin model similar to the iPhone, although approximately 1.5 times the size. It's also planned to further capitalise on Apple's multi-touch concept, with more advanced commands available.

The exact role of the device in Apple's product line is unclear, it is said it would largely be treated as Apple's answer to the "Origami" ultra-mobile PC concept put forward by Microsoft last year and introduced by Samsung's Q1 Ultra and Sony's VAIO UX.

The as-yet-unannounced device is expected to release in the first half of 2008, to coincide with Jobs' Macworld keynote speech in January.