A Saguaro insider just sent me an email with a few very interesting posts from the Saguaro beta tester forum – I quote them in full length here, and emphasize the important segments:

Parker
Lead Saguaro Developer
Hi everyone,

Early versions will support Saguaro-only apps, but we do plan to add support for legacy application launching once the file browser is implemented into the shell. For example, you’ll be able to create icons on the desktop to installed legacy apps (i.e. Bejeweled, SnapperMail, Blazer). Once legacy application launching is implemented, Saguaro will become a viable launcher replacement. The only difference between launching Saguaro-only apps and legacy apps is that Saguaro apps will open in the multitasking environment whereas legacy applications will ask whether you want to temporarily exit Saguaro to run the application – after selecting OK, Saguaro exits and the legacy app opens.

We have extensive plans to develop a number of applications and help interested developers migrate their existing applications to Saguaro. The first release will ship with an assortment of widgets to get you started. We’d rather have a few quality apps (like Mac OS X) than zillions of half-baked apps (like Windows).

Before Saguaro is available, watch for the release of MojaveGL. (It’s the high-performance graphics engine developed to power Saguaro – I spent months *seriously* optimizing it.) All I’m going to say is that TrueType fonts and antialiasing are supported – the screenshot on the Saguaro product page is indeed real.

Sincerely,
Parker

Hmm – if I understand this correctly, Saguaro aims to attack the Palm OS launcher market too. It can’t add multitasking to legacy Palm OS apps of course, but the description I see here looks sensible to me(if the alert can be disabled).

Also, the MojaveGL thingy sounds very interesting. Truetypefont support and antialisasing UI sounds like nice features to have!

Don’t expect Life@Hand to be immediately available with the release of Saguaro… I will say that there’s a reason why we’re developing Saguaro now instead of Life@Hand.

It looks as if the company plans to release a Palm OS PIM suite as “platform seller” for its Saguaro desktop – sort of like the Microsoft office suite sold windows.

Old 01-07-2007, 04:01 PM
Parker
Lead Saguaro Developer

Watch for beta 1
Stay tuned!
Reply With Quote

Hmm – it looks as if a first beta will make it out to the (limited) public soon…

As always, if you have any kind of info, forward it to us straight away. As of now, what do you think?

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