[besson3c]

Steve Jobs Confirms Discontinuation of iWeb in iCloud Transition - Mac Rumors


Looks like iWeb won't make the jump to iCloud.

I hope they are building something more Web 2.0 than iWeb, this will pacify many users, and would represent a more forward thinking strategy as well - iWeb's approach is pretty old school.

[turtle777]

Yes, it's true that iWeb is dated.

Let's see what Apple will offer as a replacement. I can not think that this would be it.

-t

[freudling]

Ya. iWeb is a bit of a mess.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Yes, it's true that iWeb is dated.

Let's see what Apple will offer as a replacement. I can not think that this would be it.

-t

Perhaps Apple's MobileMe extension is their replacement? After all, you can publish your iWeb sites to any FTP server, and the extension ought to provide enough time to allow users to migrate their sites to a new host. We're just talking about static HTML files after all, right? Were there any special plugins or widgets that Apple provided that would not be portable?

It seems like a lot of people like iWeb, but I've always thought that for those in the industry this tarnished Apple's brand. "Good enough" or utilitarian is not exactly Apple's mantra.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I hope they are building something more Web 2.0 than iWeb, this will pacify many users, and would represent a more forward thinking strategy as well - iWeb's approach is pretty old school.

Don't be silly. iWeb is designed to be easy for the average user, not be a complicated CMS. It is what it is - the average user doesn't need a web 2.0 solution.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Don't be silly. iWeb is designed to be easy for the average user, not be a complicated CMS. It is what it is - the average user doesn't need a web 2.0 solution.

Yes, but Apple could create a easy to use front-end (GUI) to a open-source CMS like Concrete5.

Sort of what they did with OS X on top of UNIX

-t

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Yes, but Apple could create a easy to use front-end (GUI) to a open-source CMS like Concrete5.

Sort of what they did with OS X on top of UNIX

Right, because end users want to be arsing with web databases when they go wrong. Do iWeb users really need anything more dynamic than the blog module already included? I think not.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Right, because end users want to be arsing with web databases when they go wrong. Do iWeb users really need anything more dynamic than the blog module already included? I think not.

Who says they need to know about the database ?
If it gets corrupted, you restore from the last backup.

Really, it's none different than the current iWeb "database", which is just a huge bundle of files. If that gets corrupted, you are SOL as well.

The point is not that iWeb users *need* something more powerful, the point would be to offer ease of use, with the option to go power user with the same tool. Plus, using some open source solution would make it much more flexible for extensions.

-t

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Who says they need to know about the database ?
If it gets corrupted, you restore from the last backup.

On the site running it?

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Really, it's none different than the current iWeb "database", which is just a huge bundle of files. If that gets corrupted, you are SOL as well.

Not really. It's a flat-file web site with internal hyperlinks. How corrupted does it get?

Originally Posted by turtle777 

The point is not that iWeb users *need* something more powerful, the point would be to offer ease of use, with the option to go power user with the same tool. Plus, using some open source solution would make it much more flexible for extensions.

And then someone else comes along and makes a tool the same as the old iWeb and everyone marvels at how complicated Apple has made life for their users with the new iWeb.

iWeb ain't broken. It is what it is. Don't fix it.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Don't be silly. iWeb is designed to be easy for the average user, not be a complicated CMS. It is what it is - the average user doesn't need a web 2.0 solution.

That's great, until the user outgrows iWeb, at which point they will have a pretty expensive proposition ahead of them in terms of upgrading their site to something that will take them to the next level.

One typical way to outgrow sites like this is needing to grant other people the ability to edit certain content.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Right, because end users want to be arsing with web databases when they go wrong. Do iWeb users really need anything more dynamic than the blog module already included? I think not.

They do if they want to allow users to search their blog content, or setup access for others to blog to certain categories, or allow moderated comments and stuff - you know, blog stuff.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

That's great, until the user outgrows iWeb, at which point they will have a pretty expensive proposition ahead of them in terms of upgrading their site to something that will take them to the next level.

Right. I forgot that a licence to run Joomla costs $25,000.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

The point is not that iWeb users *need* something more powerful, the point would be to offer ease of use, with the option to go power user with the same tool. Plus, using some open source solution would make it much more flexible for extensions.

-t

Exactly. Plus, like I said, once you reach the end of the rope in terms of what iWeb will do you are really SOL. There is no simple upgrade path beyond the Mickey Mouse Geocities era capabilities provided by iWeb.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Right. I forgot that a licence to run Joomla costs $25,000.

Do you think your average iWeb user is going to know what to migrate to, how to make a template for a CMS, how to recode their site so that it works properly with a CMS, etc.?

This is Apple's job to make things simple and "just work". Instead they give people a dinky little tinker toy of an app and make them fend for themselves when they outgrow it.

[Doofy]

Let me put it another way Bess...

Originally Posted by Albert Einstein

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Your average iWeb user doesn't need to allow other people to edit the content, or anything else that a CMS allows him to do. If you think he does, you're missing the whole point of iWeb.

Why don't you just write a script which converts iWeb content to CMS content, market it and stop whining that not everything is as complicated and geeky as you'd like it to be?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Your average iWeb user doesn't need to allow other people to edit the content, or anything else that a CMS allows him to do. If you think he does, you're missing the whole point of iWeb.

We've gone over this... See the above stuff about what happens when the user outgrows iWeb.

Why don't you just write a script which converts iWeb content to CMS content, market it and stop whining that not everything is as complicated and geeky as you'd like it to be?

Why are you picking a fight with me? This doesn't have to be personal.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

We've gone over this... See the above stuff about what happens when the user outgrows iWeb.

When a user outgrows iWeb, chances are they're ready for the real thing. So they should then go learn how to use the real thing.

Or do you actually want a load of beginners who don't know what they're doing checking the "advanced user' box in the iWeb prefs (they will, you know) and then publishing the resulting abomination to the web?

In other news, I'm very worried about what'll happen when people outgrow iTunes (the app) and where their upgrade path is. Apple should put full Logic and FCP functionality into iTunes! Think of the children!

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

When a user outgrows iWeb, chances are they're ready for the real thing. So they should then go learn how to use the real thing.

Or do you actually want a load of beginners who don't know what they're doing checking the "advanced user' box in the iWeb prefs (they will, you know) and then publishing the resulting abomination to the web?

In other news, I'm very worried about what'll happen when people outgrow iTunes (the app) and where their upgrade path is. Apple should put full Logic and FCP functionality into iTunes! Think of the children!

When a user outgrows iMovie they can move onto Final Cut. When a user outgrows iWeb they have to discard everything and start from scratch with something else. There is no reason for this, Apple has proven time and time again that they are capable of making a UI that people can use, even one that obfuscates pretty complicated concepts. It's not like something like WordPress is all that tough, if WordPress can do it, so can Apple.

I don't understand your point about the advanced checkbox.

[mduell]

I don't know about the authenticity of the email exchange, but iWeb isn't very good so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple killed it rather than improving it.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I don't know about the authenticity of the email exchange, but iWeb isn't very good so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple killed it rather than improving it.

Me neither, but I can see sometime down the road if iCloud ends up being a success and Apple becomes pretty established in the web services game that they make another run at DIY websites, this time with a more modern approach. The more iCloud stuff people rely on, the more Apple will sell hardware is my bet ala the iPod halo effect equivalent which, AFAIK, has had some measured impact.

Then again, I can see Apple sitting this out too... I wouldn't be surprised either way. The one thing that would work in the favor of Apple going down this path though is that even if these sites don't really catch on, Apple could easily relocate their web team elsewhere. I'm sure web guys will always be useful to Apple.

[Eug]

iWeb sucks. It's terrible even for "experienced beginners" IMO. I hope they have something way better coming.

I tried using iWeb to create personal photo sites for sharing with friends and family. Then I realized iWeb offers absolutely no upgrade path, and if iWeb ever died I'd be completely SOL. So I stopped using iWeb altogether. In fact, I now just use Photobucket and its built-in slideshow feature for picture sharing, cuz it's not as if I'm gonna use Dreamweaver to build these sites.

[besson3c]

My take on Apple's online strategy...

I think iTools was sort of a half-hearted experiment, and MobileMe was sort of a weak half-hearted attempt to add value to the Mac and iLife. I think the whole potential of being a much stronger entity in web services really blind-sided Apple, they fumbled this really badly.

Up until now.

As is often the case, Apple is not always the first to the party, but when they make bold and splashy steps they really bring their A game. I think iCloud is a bold and splashy step, because they have tethered much to its success - a lot is at stake if it fails. Nobody is going to be happy if cloud saving fails or is really slow because iCloud doesn't scale well, or if there is data lost, or whatever.

I think Apple probably wants to pretend that iTools and MobileMe didn't exist, call it a mulligan, and go for a clean slate with iCloud. I think that Apple is willing to take the hit of users that are annoyed by having their MobileMe stuff such as iWeb canned, because they intend to garner far more positive press with iCloud for what it is designed to do rather than bad press.

I think Apple will probably focus on getting what they've advertised to work really well, the launch wrinkle free, and making sure that their infrastructure is setup to scale for what will probably be a very large user base. If the launch has wrinkles, Apple may not have another chance at this. I think that several months after a successful launch Apple might think about adding on new stuff, such as hosting websites and whatnot.

Until then, I think iWeb users should be strongly urged to switch to something else pronto.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Eug 

iWeb sucks. It's terrible even for "experienced beginners" IMO. I hope they have something way better coming.

I tried using iWeb to create personal photo sites for sharing with friends and family. Then I realized iWeb offers absolutely no upgrade path, and if iWeb ever died I'd be completely SOL. So I stopped using iWeb altogether. In fact, I now just use Photobucket and its built-in slideshow feature for picture sharing, cuz it's not as if I'm gonna use Dreamweaver to build these sites.

Makes sense. MobileMe's photo gallery and sharing features was pretty much the best thing about it as well. Screw Dreamweaver and screw iWeb. Memba the Dreamweaver days boys? Holy shite, glad that's all behind us.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Makes sense. MobileMe's photo gallery and sharing features was pretty much the best thing about it as well. Screw Dreamweaver and screw iWeb. Memba the Dreamweaver days boys? Holy shite, glad that's all behind us.

There still seems to be a lot of Dreamweaver users.

What I haven't figured out is what ratio of these users would identify themselves as the old-school Dreamweaver crowd doing things in the so-called Web 1.0 way, or users that just like using Dreamweaver as a text editor.

[Salty]

I'd like to see iWeb given over to the iWork team. I could see them developing some pretty cool stuff. It might also be nice for Apple to do something like fork an established CMS.

My existing host company allows one click install of Wordpress on my server. It'd be really nice if Apple created some good word press themes with some dynamic theming options (maybe even give access to the style sheet!) combine that with the ability to edit from a native app on your Mac with all the confusing crap taken out ... and you'd be golden.

The problem is that there is 0 money to be made doing this.

My guess is though that they're just gonna can iWeb. There are third party solutions in the app store that arguably work better, and my guess is that they rarely get appointments at the Apple Store for people wanting help building their own websites.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Salty 

I'd like to see iWeb given over to the iWork team. I could see them developing some pretty cool stuff. It might also be nice for Apple to do something like fork an established CMS.

My existing host company allows one click install of Wordpress on my server. It'd be really nice if Apple created some good word press themes with some dynamic theming options (maybe even give access to the style sheet!) combine that with the ability to edit from a native app on your Mac with all the confusing ganja taken out ... and you'd be golden.

The problem is that there is 0 money to be made doing this.

My guess is though that they're just gonna can iWeb. There are third party solutions in the app store that arguably work better, and my guess is that they rarely get appointments at the Apple Store for people wanting help building their own websites.

I hope Apple doesn't use WordPress. WP has a pretty user-friendly UI and a lot of plugins and users using it and stuff, but its non-MVC design is also pretty long-in-the-tooth. Plus, the included TinyMCE editor doesn't even work on iPads (the competing CKEditor also doesn't, both claim this is a Webkit problem), so that would be a deal breaker right there.

I think that the money making potential here is the iPad halo effect thingy... People getting warm fuzzies about Apple stuff = more hardware sales.

[ajprice]

Will iWeb disappearing mean the folders on my iDisk will go? I use my iDisk sites folder for uploading pictures, signatures etc.

[Spheric Harlot]

From the look of it, it may just be reduced to 5GB of space, for free.

Beyond that, nothing is known, AFAICS.

[andi*pandi]

I still miss homepage. That was a simple thing to use, and it worked. Yes, I could code my own iphoto gallery, but why? Prefer it over the "new" gallery feature.

Never bothered with iWeb (just kind of went with flickr, or coding my own pages), but I can see the need for people to have something simple. Those people could give a rats tuckus about CMS and MVC and MCE and blah blah blah.

[besson3c]

I can see the need for something simple too, I just think Apple can do much better than iWeb.

[Gankdawg]

Hopefully iCards wlll make a splashy return.

[Spheric Harlot]

I really *liked* iCards.

[Eug]

iCards was awesome. It was the only site with truly free cards that didn't look like they were designed for the good-taste challenged *** cough *** Blue Mountain *** cough ***.

As for iWeb, even though I use Photobucket slideshows now, I still like the concept of a simple web editor for the masses... but just think iWeb isn't it. Photobucket is fine for images, but you can't really do anything else with it, hence the need for an iWeb replacement.

[Salty]

I mention word press simply because it's a good way to blog, and that's mostly what iWeb was billed as, a blogging tool.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Salty 

I mention word press simply because it's a good way to blog, and that's mostly what iWeb was billed as, a blogging tool.

Is it really billed as a blogging tool? If so, that's kind of laughable...

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Salty 

I mention word press simply because it's a good way to blog, and that's mostly what iWeb was billed as, a blogging tool.

Yes and no.

Yes, iWeb had a "blogging" feature, but this was not the main purpose of iWeb, and I doubt many used it for that reason.

For most people, iWeb was a tool to create a simple web presence and publish pictures.

-t

[Big Mac]

I always thought Apple had the ability to develop a world-class, no compromises web production suite, analogous to the Final Cut line. It surprised me that this never happened.

[Brien]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I always thought Apple had the ability to develop a world-class, no compromises web production suite, analogous to the Final Cut line. It surprised me that this never happened.

Apple would've bought Macromedia if they wanted that.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I always thought Apple had the ability to develop a world-class, no compromises web production suite, analogous to the Final Cut line. It surprised me that this never happened.

Too many server-side variables to maintain the illusion of "easy" (i.e. Apple-like), if you ask me. Remember what a mess "FrontPage extensions" were?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Brien 

Apple would've bought Macromedia if they wanted that.

Why? Macromedia was not showing many signs of being terribly forward thinking even back when they were still Macromedia.

I think back in the day when people were using Perl and early versions of PHP people recognized that this programming stuff was important, and that apps that focused on front-end creation such as Flash, ImageReady, GoLive, and the like were not focusing on this. I mean, I'd be utterly shocked if Apple's early web based stores (prior to WebObjects) or any other part of their site that dealt with dynamic content was constructed with something like GoLive.

What was probably difficult to predict was Javascript maturing enough to be the centerpiece of web apps that behave like Desktop apps, but I don't think it was ever a foregone conclusion that Flash/Shockwave was to be the future of all visuals either.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Too many server-side variables to maintain the illusion of "easy" (i.e. Apple-like), if you ask me. Remember what a mess "FrontPage extensions" were?

What about OWA, Google Docs, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Netflix, MLB.TV, Hulu, WordPress, MobileMe, or any number of relatively popular web apps? Sure they lack the Apple touch, but so does the majority of the rest of the computing world, but many of these apps do facilitate pretty complicated things.

Besides, being a full-blown WYSIWYG editor is actually pretty complicated in and of itself.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What about OWA, Google Docs, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Netflix, MLB.TV, Hulu, WordPress, MobileMe, or any number of relatively popular web apps? Sure they lack the Apple touch, but so does the majority of the rest of the computing world, but many of these apps do facilitate pretty complicated things.

Kind of the point. If you want the complexity of those things, go use those things. If you want the simplicity of an Apple experience, load iWeb.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Kind of the point. If you want the complexity of those things, go use those things. If you want the simplicity of an Apple experience, load iWeb.

My point is that Apple can at least match the complexity that these apps handle as well as providing their own Grandma-friendly Appley UI with providing the modern equivalent to iWeb. It's not necessarily one or the other.

P.S. can you tell us a bit about your Grandma?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

My point is that Apple can at least match the complexity that these apps handle as well as providing their own Grandma-friendly Appley UI with providing the modern equivalent to iWeb. It's not necessarily one or the other.

Rate of change in web technologies would be too much for them to cover all the bases, I reckon.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

P.S. can you tell us a bit about your Grandma?

She's dead.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Rate of change in web technologies would be too much for them to cover all the bases, I reckon.

What bases? WordPress has been essentially the same design for quite some time now, it just gets new stuff added onto it, and same for many other CMSes.

She's dead.

I'm *so* sorry, I feel like a complete insensitive asshole! Are you okay? I'm sorry... RIP Doofy's Grandma, I'm sure she was a great woman. Maybe you could share some of your favorite memories with us? It might be therapeutic in helping you deal with this tragedy, and us to reflect upon her life.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I think iTools was sort of a half-hearted experiment, and MobileMe was sort of a weak half-hearted attempt to add value to the Mac and iLife. I think the whole potential of being a much stronger entity in web services really blind-sided Apple, they fumbled this really badly.

Up until now.

As is often the case, Apple is not always the first to the party, but when they make bold and splashy steps they really bring their A game.

Wouldn't you have said the same about iTools, .Mac, and MobileMe? They weren't first, but I really hope that wasn't their A game.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Wouldn't you have said the same about iTools, .Mac, and MobileMe? They weren't first, but I really hope that wasn't their A game.

I don't remember these things being center stage at a WWDC and tethered to so much of Apple's infrastructure this way...

[Helmling]

This wouldn't be such a big deal if I could just FTP my iWeb site onto another server, but that wouldn't preserve the blogging functionality. Of course, free blog pages are a dime a dozen. I guess I could just link in to those...or I could just admit that I never use the damned blog anyway. Mostly my website sits fallow for weeks at a time while I work on some project, then in between major endeavors, I fiddle with posting to the blog a little bit until I get started on something else. Heck, since the last time I revamped my website, I've been so busy with major writing projects and games of Civ 5 that there are only a tiny hand full of blog posts on there.

Still...it's the, um, principle of the thing. I guess iWeb users just weren't numerous enough to maintain support for. Sucks to be in that minority of users who did rely on the feature, though.

[Helmling]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Makes sense. MobileMe's photo gallery and sharing features was pretty much the best thing about it as well. Screw Dreamweaver and screw iWeb. Memba the Dreamweaver days boys? Holy shite, glad that's all behind us.

I liked both features. I used to mess around with Dreamweaver and other web tools to create my site, but I never had the time to really do a bang up job with it and uploading every new element manually was annoying. I liked the ease of iWeb. Likewise, I found the MobileMe galleries to be so much easier than uploading to Flicker or facebook or what have you. MobileMe takes a lot of hits, but I've appreciated having all the services I need--web hosting, photo & video sharing, e-mail, calendar & contact synching--under one umbrella. iCloud might absorb the file synching that I currently pay DropBox into the calendar & contact synching, but it looks like I might have to go elsewhere for the other services.

[P]

All the posts of the big derail have been deleted. Keep it on topic, guys - you know who you are.