Has Apple Given Up on iWeb?

iLife ’11, unveiled at the latest Apple event, brings no update for iWeb. Users should rightly wonder what the fate of the app will be. It’s a shame iWeb is being ignored, because it made web design accessible to all levels of Mac users, but maybe it’s just time for a new model.

iWeb’s Origins

The design philosophy behind iWeb is summed up best in the Keynote slide pictured below, from Macworld 2006. According to Steve Jobs, software was either too simple for producing web sites that looked good, or too complex for the average consumer. Instead of HTML editing, iWeb used customizable themes and a WYSIWYG interface.

It was easy to use, and things looked good, but cross-browser compatibility proved to be difficult. iWeb’s solution caused immediate problems, most notably the creation of multi-megabyte webpages that substituted .png images for elements like text to ensure iWeb designs looked the same in all browsers. Even then, there were issues with compatibility, and the HTML iWeb generated was pretty ugly.

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