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iWeb 09 – It’s coming soon

That’s right, a brand spanking new version of our favorite web design tool is being released at the end of the month as part of the all new iLife 09. Phil Schiller made the announcement earlier on today during his keynote speech at MacWorld 09. A new version of iLife was on the cards and has been talked about for the last 3 or 4 months on many of the various Mac related web-sites as people have being trying to second guess Apple and what would be talked about at MacWorld. But now we know; iWeb 09 is coming.So what can we expect to see in the all new version of iWeb 09? To be honest not a great deal. Apple could have done so much more but seemed to have stopped short; here are the highlights of what we can see come 31 January.

Built in FTP – For those of you who do not publish your site to MobileMe this addition is well overdue. Okay, we have the fantastic application called CyberDuck at the moment, but iWeb 09 will do away with that.

And while we are on the subject of publishing your site, iWeb 09 now has the ability to only publish the pages you have changed – fantastic for those bloggers with hundreds of entries.

And once you have published your site you get a new button to press along side the ‘Visit Site’ and that is ‘Announce‘. This little tool allows you to e-mail all your friends and families to let them know your site has been updated.

Sadly, there is still no way to design and save your own theme but Apple has introduced a few new themes in the way of Fine Line and Leaf Print. We shall have to wait and see if they have removed any of the current iWeb 08 themes or whether any of the third party iWeb themes available on the net are compatible.

Facebook seems to have played a big part in the new iLife and iWeb 09 does not escape. You now have the ability to link your iWeb site to your Facebook profile so that every time you republish your site your Facebook profile is updated to let all your friends know.

The new-look Media Browser which slides elegantly from the right of iWeb 09 once you have clicked on its icon also has a new button. Widgets! Not that there are that many new widgets to choose from, Google Maps and Adsense is still there as are the HTML Snippets; but now we have the ability to insert a MobileMe gallery, YouTube videos or photos and videos from your iSight camera. There is also a new ‘Countdown’ widget to add a countdown clock (with 4 different styles) to your iWeb site.

So there you have it. Is it going to be worth the $79 asking price when it comes out at the end of January? I can’t say for definite, but I know that I will be pre-ordering my copy for the integrated FTP alone. I would like to have seen more to helps us with theme design and can think of a few other things I would have liked included such as the ability to build and manage multiple sites seperatly rather than still within one folder, but who knows; perhaps they will be there in iWeb 10. If we start the rumor now it may become a reality.

To find out more about iWeb 09 as well as the rest of the iLife 09 suite of applications you can take a look at the Apple web-site pages on the new iLife.

Let me know what you think, is there something you wish Apple had added or perhaps taken away form iWeb 08? Leave a comment.

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7 Comments

  1. I too am curious about iWeb ‘09. It now includes an FTP app, so i wonder if when using FTP , will the ability to comment on blogs be preserved?
    Currently, with iWeb ‘08, unless you publish to MobileMe, your blog will not have the ability for readers to add comments.
    This causes a conundrum, If iweb will preserve all features via FTP , should I even bother to renew my MobileMe

  2. Karl,

    I was turned off MobileMe when I read all of the heartache users where having (on the Apple forums) following the big switchover and since…

    If you use the right FTP application (ie Cyberduck) that allows you to publish only changes I don’t think there is any need for MobileMe’s web space. But that is just me.

    Tim

  3. I was wondering about the BUILT IN client on ’09 .. Has there been any word on that ?

  4. Hi Tim,

    I just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed your tips and insights in using iWeb. Trained as a psychologist, I never learned anything about coding, website management, etc. So, starting a few months ago, I’ve been trying to teach myself about the basics of creating a website using iWeb. I have learned a lot from your posts as I’ve developed a new organization and its related website (www.UrbanMindfulness.org).

    I did have a question for you, though. At present, I’m using iWeb and MobileMe. Because I have blog posts twice each week, I often re-publish the site. Given these parameters, it seems as though I cannot implement many of your SEO suggestions very well. For example, once I add tags and change the html (via the iDisk file), won’t I lose these changes when I publish the site again from iWeb? Any thoughts about how to address this problem?

    This might be a basic observation, but it seems that blogs and websites are different in that the former is quite dynamic (with frequent updates), while the latter is often static (i.e., its content remains unchanged for a while). Thus, it can be a little awkward in combining the two, no?

    Jon

  5. Only few seconday features. Built in FTP sucks because I have to add Google Analytics before that. Then I use Firefox FTP.
    I need i-Web web store generator.

  6. Hi,

    I still have iWeb 06. In order to upgrade to iWeb 09 I’ll need to upgrade to Leopard as well. I’m nervous about the transition and the possibility of losing my current work. Do you recommend that I finally make the move and just upgrade completely? I appreciate any feedback you can give. Thanks!

    -C

    1. Personally C, I am of the ‘if it aint broke dont fix it’ club. If you are happy with what iWeb 06 does for you then stay with it if not, go for the upgrade; it’s a big chunk of cash to be spending on a new OS and iLife. I will be upgrading purely for the FTP and (semi-)management of multiple iWeb sites but I will be backing up my site first. I think the upgrade is worth it

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