[NewsPoster]

In the introduction and first two parts of this five-part series, we've talked mostly about occasions where Apple has taken a popular application and radically re-thought it -- sometimes causing great consternation at first, though usually this gives way to a genuinely beter program in the end. Sometimes, however, the company just up and cuts the legs off programs, and often without a clear explanation. There are lots of examples, but today we focus on one of Apple's most brutal murders: iWeb.

Once one of the biggest stars in Apple's iLife suite of consumer-level media apps, Apple didn't so much abandon some features of iWeb, the software that genuinely made it easy to create basic websites, as much as it ditched the entire thing, locked the door behind it, and then firebombed the place. If you can still find the application on your Mac, it still works (sorta) -- but good luck with that in the future. The death of iWeb is particularly odd, given that it did genuinely help kick off a revolution of ordinary consumers creating personal web pages that continues today.

It was an application on your Mac that created a website online: the distinction between the web and your own computer isn't one you think about much today, but back in the day, you did. The average user came from a background of creating documents on their computers, that they then printed or published or in some way sent out to the world. It wasn't too complex, but at the time, putting that same document or a version of it on the web required the kind of arcane incantations and coding knowledge that reminded Mac users of why DOS was so primitive: iWeb, by comparison, created sites that you then sent out onto the web with a dead minimum of complication. Given that it all looked very much like desktop publishing with its templates and end result, iWeb was a great example of what Apple often does so well: it turned an off-putting and complex notion into something we all understood we could do -- and then we did it.

Soon, everybody and -- no word of a lie -- their cat had websites. That this now seems quaint, that personal websites are these days chiefly done by authors about their work more than they are by pets about catnip, tells you something about why Apple ultimately had to kill off the program. You can probably blame Facebook and Twitter and the like-minded microblogging services that came after it for that, but of course those companies only offer some of what your own web page really gives you, so there is still a huge market for web-page building.

This is like looking at a photo of your hair in the 80s.

There were a few programs that took a stab at helping people navigate the complexities of HTML by hiding the code behind a desktop-layout metaphor before iWeb -- notably, Adobe's well-regarded Pagemill (later dropped when Adobe acquired GoLive), and Microsoft's ... well, let's not beat around the bush, craptastic Front Page -- but it was Apple that really hit on the approach that resonated with consumers, so much so that it influenced much of the company's later software development in programs like Pages, Keynote, iPhoto, Garageband, and others.

Adobe's next attempt, the superior GoLive

The real innovation in iWeb, besides making the entire process a one-stop stop from creation to hosting, was the use of templates. We are very used to them now, but iWeb really exploited the idea of customizable templates for web sites, allowing users to customize them quite heavily if desired (short of actually writing code, at least in the earliest iterations), or simply replace the stock text and graphics with their own, mostly by pasting in text (or writing it on the spot) and dragging in photos.

A few minor adjustments, and a user could -- literally -- press a single button and have their website be functioning on the Internet. Compared to the relative complexity of learning code, this was a revelation -- and put website design into the hands of consumers on the largest scale yet. From online travelogues to family pages to personal blogs, iWeb really brought the concept of WYSIWYG web publishing into the mainstream. There may have been some severe abuses of artistic taste and design, but don't blame the tools.

And then there was iWeb.

This made the idea of a website graspable by the average person, and iWeb topped it with a reliable, buit-in FTP capability that tied directly into the company's MobileMe service, which provided free web space for hosting the personal pages -- almost overnight, Apple had conquered all the obstacles that stopped people from creating their own websites, and the public responded with gusto. A cottage industry sprung up in making additional templates for an ever-growing list of websites types that would have been unthinkable a couple of years earlier.

You know that Apple later abandoned the iWeb application, and cruelly shut down your MobileMe-hosted websites when it gave up on that service. If you'd gone to the trouble of using iWeb to create sites on other services, then you were fine -- but if you stuck to the one-button-does-all model Apple had created so well, your site was unceremoniously switched off. It still existed on your Mac, but on June 30, 2012, MobileMe was officially closed. Apple did give plenty of warnings ahead of that, and if you were the type to ignore emails from them until something bad happens, you had a month from when it happened to when you could least copy back any data on your website. As of July 31, however, that was that.

So why did Apple abandon a wildly successful product like iWeb? There were two main factors: the first was rising competition from both web-based apps and third-party software that could do the same job, for free, and were updated much more frequently. The second reason was the users themselves: their embrace of iWeb and similar services and the expanded possibilities it planted in users' minds quickly outgrew the limited, personal-page type use Apple had envisioned.

Teachers wanted webpages for their classes, home-based businesses want to sell stuff and take credit cards or PayPal, small companies wanted to create catalogs of inventory they could tie to a database ... the problem with iWeb was that it made this stuff too easy, and thus the users' ambitions outstripped what Apple could or indeed wanted to do with the program, though it spent the next two major revisions frantically trying to accommodate requests.

iWeb in its final incarnation, with added abilities

Some were pretty big, and arguably took iWeb away from its roots as a tool for all of us: version 2, released as iWeb '08, introduced HTML snippets. You could drag and drop a snippet to your website page, just as you would a graphic or text block, but once it was there you could write HTML code into it. If you knew what HTML was and how to code it, you probably weren't using iWeb. Yet if you were an iWeb fan, you were coming up against so many issues where it would just fall short by the tiniest amount that it was worth your learning some HTML, and the snippets were great.

Then iWeb '08 added the ability to embed Google Maps, and work with the advertising system Google AdSense. As well as looking outwards to web services like those, it also looked inwards and fixed bugs, made it easier to upgrade websites from the first versions of iWeb. Various small updates addressed compatibility with Aperture, and with OS X 10.5. Speaking of photographs, it wasn't just compatibility with Aperture that was improved: iWeb '08 gave you better photo albums online.

For version 3, called iWeb '09, Apple went back to presenting this as the consumer-friendly, non-technical software it originally was. They just mostly did that through how it was promoted and explained on the Apple website, plus by removing some need for HTML snippets by including functions people were trying to use. So iWeb '09 had a YouTube widget: drag that to your page, add in the website URL address of the video you wanted to play, and it played. Right there in your web page. This is so common now that you didn't even think it was a thing but back in 2009, oh, it was a thing.

So was uploading. Maybe Apple had an inkling that MobileMe wasn't going to survive, because it was iWeb '09 that introduced the ability to upload your sites to other services as easily as it uploaded to its own. You could always do it by saving your site to your Mac's hard disk and using FTP software to upload it all somewhere, but now you could do that directly from within iWeb.

With publishing comes a need to talk about it: iWeb '09 could now automatically irritate your Facebook friends by announcing every single time you changed a comma. If only Apple had changed things so often. The iWeb '09 application got rather forgotten when iLife '11 came around, and while there was an update to version 3.0.4, it was a bug-fix release and no more significant features were ever added.

Or at least, they were never added by Apple to iWeb: the popularity of the software prompted the creation of rivals and they did keep on truckin'. Third-party software software, from Sandvox to Freeway (and the long-standing pro-level tool, Dreamweaver, which is still around), came along with better solutions (albeit nearly all of them more expensive). No more than how it has dropped DVD drives from its machines, though, Apple's decision to abandon iWeb was a move that caused temporary pain, but was quite foreseeable given the company's limited focus on it -- others had quickly built on what iWeb had popularized, and could do so much more nimbly.

Such apps still exist, but so now do online services such as Wordpress or SquareSpace. It's possible to see Wordpress as a little bit of a success: there are currently some 60 million websites built using it. We'll never know how many sites were made with iWeb, but it wasn't 60 million. Still, Wordpress is not as easy as iWeb: if you stick to its templates then you're fine, but any wriggle room requires some work and some maintenance. It requires a bit more knowledge than we had to have back in 2006, but then we have that: we know more, we are more sophisticated web readers as well as users.

Far more. Consequently, there is no compelling reason left to use iWeb today, even though it largely still works, when you can achieve the same ease of use and range of template designs -- and far more now, such as more easily set-up shopping/selling back-ends -- with the existing alternatives. For individuals and most small businesses, the services of companies like Everweb (particularly recommended if you loved the way iWeb worked), Etsy, Squarespace, Blogger, Tumblr, or Wordpress.com may cover their needs in whole or in part. Apple's iWeb was a pioneer, but it got surpassed very quickly as the original audience for whom it was intended -- individuals and families -- quickly adopted the emerging platform of "social media" as the hub of their digital lives.

Our polling pool gave us interesting results regarding the demise of iWeb. Of our 100-strong team, 32 weren't able to use iWeb in conjunction with MobileMe, as they joined after the cessation of web hosting on Apple's service. Only nine users had ever even tried iWeb, with two having made more than a single page. One user of the two who made more than one page had a 5GB project, which has been migrated to an unspecified program by "a tool that doesn't exist any more," presumably by working with the final HTML/CSS output of iWeb.

A great number (41) of the users who never tried iWeb were long-time users of OS X, and claimed to have either had deep knowledge of HTML when iWeb shipped, preferred to use another WYSIWYG tool, or not have any need for it in the first place. We have apocryphal data collected over years that suggests that iWeb was more widely used than our polling pool reflects, but it may be that people who used iWeb for projects were just very vocal about its departure.

Everyone has been affected by Apple's bulldozer approach to changing or dropping apps, and everyone has been affected differently. If you haven't built your business on an iWeb website, it's easy to think that the alternatives are now better. Yet even today in 2015, four years after it was last updated at all, people are still using it -- because it is still one of the most brain-dead easy ways to create a functional, not-awful web page for people who don't want to make building web pages a career.

Apple makes great software that people like and depend on. But it can be merciless when it decides that the time has come to kill them off, even if its rationale is sound. More on that -- and Apple's history of photo apps -- tomorrow.

-- William Gallagher (@WGallagher) and Charles Martin (@Editor_MacNN), with polling data from Mike Wuerthele

Did you miss earlier installments? Our introduction to the series is here, with Apple's renovation of Pages in Monday's installment. Tuesday featured Apple's video apps, including iPhoto, Final Cut Pro, and iDVD.

[GreenMnM]

I was wondering if iWeb was going to appear in this series of stories. I still use iWeb with Mac OS X 10.10.3. Everything seems to still be working for me. I have over 3,000 pages and 50,000 pictures on my site. When MobileMe was going to go away I found a new web host and moved my site over. I picked one that had "unlimited" space but when I got over 1GB of my site up it broke. Their technical support said a Unix web host couldn't run a site with over 1GB of files. Why offer a site with "unlimited space" if you can't deliver it? I found another host that did not have a problem with the size and offered _real_ unlimited space. But besides that iWeb continues to work for me.

[Mike Wuerthele]

Oh yeah, it works, for sure. Comments are broken, without add-ons, and the HTML upload isn't as smooth as the MobileMe integration was, but yeah.

Honestly, I'm glad it still works for you. I hope it continues to do so. Just be sure your library files are safe!

[bobolicious]

As someone who coded a basic html in 1995 by hand, PageMill seemed a revelation. As suggested when it lapsed nothing seemed to offer a replacement for ease of use, until iWeb, which made effortless & elegant many more aspects of website authoring. Simply optimizing GIF & JPG in PS for the web was a time consuming guestimating process - all automatic in iWeb... GoLive may have been a great vertical publisher's app, however like most such animals there seemed a substantial maintenance & learning curve requirement...

The independence of iWeb also seems notable vs Wordpress & the data mining machines of various social media sites... I never tried MobileMe, using FTP or hosting locally ie as mac server could now . As of 10.10.3 opening iPhoto after installing Photos seems to have restored the iWeb access via the iWeb Media Window, so it seems both iPhoto & Aperture remain viable with iWeb, at least for now...

Here's hoping Apple chooses to support & revitalize what quickly became my all time favourite software from all the genius in Cupertino, still in use in (my) commercial activity today...

[GaryDeezy]

Good article. You know, iWeb was not perfect and was not nearly as sophisticated as some of the other tools on the market. But, not even a day goes by that I don't run into a client, potential client or friend who just wants to create a dirt simple, drag-and-drop based web page, and iWeb was the only tool I have EVER seen that did it so that mere mortals could do the job.

Sorry to see it go. Even sorrier that Apple couldn't see fit to sell it off to someone else willing to keep it alive.

But, I got used to Apple pulling such stunts.... wheres my Xserve again?

[Mike Wuerthele]

Originally Posted by GaryDeezy 

But, I got used to Apple pulling such stunts.... wheres my Xserve again?

Yeah, so are we. The new Photos app catalyzed this series. Guess what we're talking about tomorrow!

[Charles Martin]

For those of you who enjoy using iWeb, I'd suggest looking at the Everweb service/software as an eventual replacement (because you know iWeb will eventually break for good at some point). It is VERY similar to iWeb (by design) and while more expensive (obviously), is very reasonably priced for what it offers.

[neutrino23]

It hurt when iWeb stopped growing. I used to make quick web pages for our group documenting special events. We'd work during the day and the web page would be up after dinner.

[GreenMnM]

Charles, I would use Everweb if you could put labels under a series of pictures automatically. Until that option is available I can't use it. Currently you have to manually create a text box and type the caption in yourself. I keep waiting for that feature to appear!

[Charles Martin]

GreenMnM: drop a line to the developer about it, they've been very friendly and responsive to us.

[besson3c]

I think the idea behind iWeb was fundamentally broken, and Apple realized this.

There are some people that can make use of a tool like iWeb that will allow creation of *very* basic sites that will never evolve to be more than that, but the thing is, I'm sure there were countless customers that created a lot of content in iWeb, grew out of it, and because the content was all unstructured had absolutely no path into something that would serve their business better.

If I were a company like Apple, I would distance myself away from tools that paint people into corners. Apple could upsell customers from iMovie to Final Cut, iPhoto to Aperture, but iWeb was fundamentally a tool with a limited use case.

As was pointed out, there are other tools that can be used to build simple static content, and many of these tools can force necessary structure. I don't think there was any real opportunity for Apple here. From a marketing standpoint, websites built from WYSIWYG editors have been dead for years now, Apple has rarely been interested in associating themselves with outdated technology.

[panjandrum]

iWeb was an especially difficult loss and one of those moves that angered a lot of users. After years of managing websites using GoLive (also abandoned for far less intuitive software), I had finally found one website creation tool that was actually easy enough that I could build a site, teach my client how to use the software, and then they would be good to go. It was a great, great tool that worked in a way nothing else at the time did (some tried, but they all failed). iWeb was one of those brilliant apps from Apple that did, simply and easily, exactly what a lot of people needed. When it was abandoned (it technically still works, but many features are broken; even web-galleries will have "?" for missing icons, because those images were served-up my Apple's servers) it left a huge void; nothing had yet come along with anywhere near the WYSIWYG functionality of iWeb. Now, years later, I've been helping users move their old iWeb sites to Weebly, which is the only service I've found that has the ease-of-use necessary for ordinary mortals. It involves cut-and-paste from the existing iWeb site (or from within the iWeb application), but unless a site is gigantic you can usually move a site from iWeb to Weebly without too much difficulty. So give that a try if you need something that's as easy to use as iWeb.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by panjandrum 

iWeb was an especially difficult loss and one of those moves that angered a lot of users. After years of managing websites using GoLive (also abandoned for far less intuitive software), I had finally found one website creation tool that was actually easy enough that I could build a site, teach my client how to use the software, and then they would be good to go. It was a great, great tool that worked in a way nothing else at the time did (some tried, but they all failed). iWeb was one of those brilliant apps from Apple that did, simply and easily, exactly what a lot of people needed. When it was abandoned (it technically still works, but many features are broken; even web-galleries will have "?" for missing icons, because those images were served-up my Apple's servers) it left a huge void; nothing had yet come along with anywhere near the WYSIWYG functionality of iWeb. Now, years later, I've been helping users move their old iWeb sites to Weebly, which is the only service I've found that has the ease-of-use necessary for ordinary mortals. It involves cut-and-paste from the existing iWeb site (or from within the iWeb application), but unless a site is gigantic you can usually move a site from iWeb to Weebly without too much difficulty. So give that a try if you need something that's as easy to use as iWeb.

If you are going to recommend this option, understand that the website will get lousy SEO this way. Google not only penalizes crappy HTML blobs generated by WYSIWYG editors, but is also starting to penalize sites that are not responsive. Something like a fixed width table will probably break a responsive layout.

[GaryDeezy]

@besson3c : "because the content was all unstructured had absolutely no path into something that would serve their business better."

Not really, if you think about it. iWeb produced industry standard HTML and CSS. Therefore, if I created a site in iWeb, and wanted to migrate to GoLive or Dreamweaver later, I certainly could edit those same files with these new tools... knowing, of course, there was no going back once I did so.

But at least it was an option. In fact, late in iWeb's life, I found myself using it as a GUI development tool, and then I would take the code output by iWeb, and do the rest of the editing in DreamWeaver, leaving iWeb behind....

[panjandrum]

@besson3c: Weebly actually has SEO tools, automatically builds mobile-versions of websites, etc. I know WIX had a terrible rep for a while in terms of SEO, but AFAIK Weebly (and probably others, such as SquareSpace) should be just fine. I'm certainly not going to try and talk people away from WYSIWYG website tools, the same way I would not suggest people go back to word-processors or desktop-publishing software that isn't WYSIWYG. That's simply what the majority of users want. Is it the right tool for GM or Porsche or Apple? Of course not. Is it the right tool for the majority of small businesses who need to be able to create and/or manage their website themselves to keep costs down and maintain a web presence? Probably.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by GaryDeezy 

@besson3c : "because the content was all unstructured had absolutely no path into something that would serve their business better."

Not really, if you think about it. iWeb produced industry standard HTML and CSS. Therefore, if I created a site in iWeb, and wanted to migrate to GoLive or Dreamweaver later, I certainly could edit those same files with these new tools... knowing, of course, there was no going back once I did so.

But at least it was an option. In fact, late in iWeb's life, I found myself using it as a GUI development tool, and then I would take the code output by iWeb, and do the rest of the editing in DreamWeaver, leaving iWeb behind....

Structured content isn't a page being a blob of HTML.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by panjandrum 

@besson3c: Weebly actually has SEO tools, automatically builds mobile-versions of websites, etc. I know WIX had a terrible rep for a while in terms of SEO, but AFAIK Weebly (and probably others, such as SquareSpace) should be just fine. I'm certainly not going to try and talk people away from WYSIWYG website tools, the same way I would not suggest people go back to word-processors or desktop-publishing software that isn't WYSIWYG. That's simply what the majority of users want. Is it the right tool for GM or Porsche or Apple? Of course not. Is it the right tool for the majority of small businesses who need to be able to create and/or manage their website themselves to keep costs down and maintain a web presence? Probably.

The problem isn't WYSIWYG, any CMS provides an editor in the form of TinyMCE, Ckeditor, etc. it's structured content vs non that separates so-called web 1 (iWeb) vs web 2.

When you have free form control over your template, the content is not structured. Google can deal with some bad HTML in content (which pretty much any WYSIWYG editor will generate), but the template needs to be semantic and responsive to be ranked appropriately by Google, and I suspect being written in HTML5 helps as well.