The following was posted on another discussion group (reuniontalk) and as I have learned iWeb in the last
6 months and grown to like it, I was concerned about its future. This seems to indicate I have to look for a
replacement well before June 2012.
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Since last week's unveiling of Apple's new iCloud service and the transitioning of the company's existing MobileMe service into iCloud, many users have been wondering about the fate of some of the MobileMe services that were not mentioned in the transition discussion. In particular, users have been concerned about iWeb, Apple's website creation software included with iLife that can be integrated with site hosting via MobileMe.
One concerned iWeb/MobileMe user emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to ask about the fate of the offering, and reportedly received confirmation that users will indeed need to find alternative hosting for their sites once MobileMe is officially discontinued. All existing MobileMe users have received free subscription extensions through June 30, 2012, at which time the service will cease to exist and the transition to iCloud will be complete.
Q: Dear Mr. Jobs,
Will I need to find an alternative website builder and someone to host my sites?
I have invested a lot of time and effort and the thought of re-training sucks more than mobileme ever did.
A: Yep.
Sent from my iPhone
As usual, the authenticity can not be confirmed with absolute certainty, but we have examined the email headers and believe them to be legitimate. Replies from Jobs' account are not particularly unusual, and he has in the past acknowledged being personally responsible for at least some, if not all, of the correspondence.
Apple's iWeb software saw its last major update with the release of iLife '09 in January 2009. The application did not receive a major update with the release of iLife '11 late last year, although Apple has continued to bundle it with the new iLife suite. The company has continued to periodically issue minor bug fixes for iWeb, most recently in February of this year.
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Yes, it seems Apple is going to slowly turn off their MobileMe services as they transition to the new iCloud offering. It does not appear at this time that iCloud will offer anything to replace the web hosting service MobileMe currently offers. Sadly, it also appears that the excellent Galleries feature will also be disappearing — though PhotoStream seems to offer some of the functionality of Galleries with Photostream albums — it's not the same as Galleries. Which begs the question — is iWeb dead?
No, it isn't. iWeb can also upload to any of the cheap hosting services that have ftp capability — that is to say, all of them. You simply change the site publishing settings to FTP( click on the site name in the left-most column and the settings page appears on the right-side), fill in the info your provider supplies, and away you go. One big caveat: you will only be able to use the MobileMe Galleries on a MobileMe-hosted page.
Given this, it doesn't seem likely iWeb (or iDVD) will be getting any future revisions. This seems to be based on two assumptions. 1) Media delivery is shifting away from DVDs — hence the downgrading of iDVD. 2) People are using FaceBook, LinkedIn, Wordpress and other social media to publish their images, blogs, resumes, etc., so the number of customers actually using the MobileMe Web service has been declining — not to mention, it's much cheaper on almost any other provider for much more extensive web capabilities.
Looking out, it would seem by the time Apple has obsoleted both these products and MobileMe, we will be in a different-enough world that it won't matter.
I too was hoping Apple would continue development on both these products, as iWeb was easily the best web-site creation tool anywhere, and iDVD the easiest DVD-authoring tool to use - though Toast's DVD-creation tools are close, they're not "free".
So, don't give up on iWeb yet, but plan some kind of transition in the next year. If there is another web editor out there that can work with the funky code emitted by iWeb, I'm not aware of it - maybe someone here knows of one? Meanwhile, there are several excellent, inexpensive editors to suit almost anyone's style - RapidWeaver, Freeway, Flux, BBEdit, Coda, etc. Rapidweaver probably comes closest in ease-of-use, but again I hope others have some recommendations...
Sad, but...
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Here's an official blurb from Apple re: What stays-What Goes-What's New in iCloud.
(http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2011/06/icloud.png)
If you want to know more, go here:
http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html
I'm currently looking at: RapidWeaver, Freeway and Freeway Pro, Flux, Webdesign, Coda, Pagespinner, Taco, and Website Painter. First, I'm looking for a replacement for iWeb, or a good web creator for non-professionals. It would be nice if it was open-source, but OSS web editors for the Mac, and in general, are not for the faint-of-heart. nVu and Kompozer are both, apparently, abandoned. Eclipse is an amazing IDE, but again, overkill for beginners, or even intermediate developers. I won't even mention Dreamweaver. Oops.
Secondly, I'm looking for web creation tools that go a little farther than iWeb - like what iWeb could have become. I'm also looking for some integration with the more common social media services - twitter, facebook, flickr, worpress, etc. - as this is something a lot of people are looking for.
In addition, or as an alternative, there are the tools provided in the dashboards of most web-service providers like GoDaddy, JustHost, etc. These providers give you many options for setting up internet services like mail, ftp and web services, and they include e-comm setups, galleries, CMS systems like Drupal and Joomla - all right from the dashboard allowing you to access your system from anywhere, anytime. Some of these are very easy setups, like the template-driven HTML editors. Some can be quite complex, and there are many in-between solutions available. These hosts are very cheap - much cheaper than MobileMe - but you must register a domain to use these services.
I'll let you know when I've posted my report.
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Here's the bummer:
QuoteSyncing of Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences will not be part of iCloud, but will continue to be available for you to use until you move to iCloud.
from the linked page in my previous postI thought iCloud was all about keeping everything "in sync"?
Happy Mac'ing?
Dan
Thank you Dan for your informed replies.
I accept that I will have to move my web-site, and technically it is not a problem while I use iWeb.
I just have to find a supplier, my ISP (Primus) says it cannot increase my web space, which is why
I moved it to MobileMe.
I do have two questions though:
1. iWeb is still in iLife 11, does that mean it will be be part of "Lion" ?
2. I use a "Hit Counter", but iWeb Help says it only works on MobileMe.
I have no idea how it works, but is there an easy way to implement it in iWeb in the future ?
I really had to look hard to see where iWeb and iDVD were on the iLife 11 page on Apple's website. The space given to iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband is so large, I hardly noticed the teeny icons and text for iWeb and iDVD. I haven't made the upgrade yet, so I'll have to see just how independent the code is. Most of it IS client-side javascript, CSS3 and good ole HTML, so maybe we can continue for quite a while yet - I can't see Lion being a concern.
I say that, but at the same time I note they are still showing MobileMe Gallery as a feature - which at this time is a pretty lame feature if it dies with MobileMe in just under a year from now. iCloud's PhotoStream does not seem to fit the bill as a replacement, but I think I'll wait and see what is announced. In the meantime - I don't see why iWeb's own Photo Albums aren't a reasonable replacement, but I don't use the Gallery feature so I'm sure someone can tell us if that just isn't so.
The hit counter was server-side, so without MobileMe - no functionality. Luckily, if your web provider supplies PHP - and most do - it's a simple script you place in your home or root folder and call from within an "HTML Snippet". I can send you the basic script and instructions if and when you need them - or Google "PHP Hit Counter".
If Apple has removed their dependencies on MobileMe, or if you are careful not to use them, then iWeb should remain a viable web-authoring tool. Yay!
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Well, it seems the world of Web-authoring tools for Mac is going strong - here's another new editor worth taking a look at - http://www.bluegriffon.org/ (http://www.bluegriffon.org/).
Hype also looks VERY interesting - see more at this month's MUGOO meeting or visit their site at http://www.tumultco.com/hype/ (http://www.tumultco.com/hype/).
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Here's yet ANOTHER web-builder for Mac - not ready yet - but there seems to be no lack of interest on the part of developers.
http://www.quickandeasywebbuilder.com/
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Okay, one more one more thing - Sandvox. Looks very similar to iWeb, but with more capability. Does not read iWeb files directly, sadly, it would appear nothing can take your existing files from an iWeb project directly, but I'm still looking!
http://www.karelia.com/sandvox/
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Adobe has jumped into the ring with a new product code-named "Muse", which they directly compare to iWeb, and will include an Adobe server, just like MobileMe used Apple's servers. Worth a look? Here's the link:
http://muse.adobe.com/
Happy Mac'ing!
Dan
Macfix has a report on Muse, with the comment:
Unlike iWeb, which had a standalone license, the full version of Muse will require a subscription-based license priced at $15 per month ($180 per year).
Hopefully there will be simpler versions at a cheaper price.