Yellerdog

 I have been using the Mac 8.5 beta client on my Macbook for about five weeks now, and I have some initial impressions. FYI, I am running on Leopard on a version 1.1 Macbook (Intel core duo) with 2Gb of memory.

• At this point, the Mac client is a lot more stable than I would expect from a first beta....
• ...assuming you have a clean install. I started with an upgrade and it was pretty crashy.
• Performance is OK. I am sure it will pick up in production.
• The Lotus team has a challenge in balancing the Mac UI guidelines and Lotus UI tradition. I am glad I don't have their challenge.
• I'd like to see the InfoBox be dockable and re-sizable.
• About the only thing I deperately miss from the Windows environment is menu keyboard shortcuts. Pressing Alt-F for the file menu is a lot more efficient than reaching for the mouse.
• IBM really needs to update the home page creation tools. They are basically unchanged since R5. One enhancement I would love to see would be an accordiion-like interface for controlling content display. They've done it in the sidebar, so it is obviously doable.
• When the migrate Administrator and Designer to OS X I will be able to delete my Windows partition.