iWeb fails the test?
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 23, 2006 at 1:24am
By Dan Pourhadi
iWeb is a stupid piece of crap.
Yes, I said it. And you know what? I’m glad I said it. I’ve had it up to my head with this garbage; I’m done. Finished. At an end. Etc.
You know what I mean, too. Steve Jobs gets on stage and talks about iWeb like it will single-handedly revolutionize our very understanding of web page development. He touts its ingenuity, its design, its functionality. He praises the graphics, the text, the templates.
He lauds its simplicity.
And I sit down in front of a new iWeb doc and OmniOutliner, and pound my head into the ground trying like there’s no tomorrow to think of one—just one—article idea that relates to this divinely-inspired web development tool and all I can jot down is a frustrated “iWeb is a stupid piece of crap.”
Then it hits me like a doctor hits a whiny newborn: iWeb will single-handedly put me out of business; force me to embrace a lifestyle of paper hats and deep-friers; take away all of my possessions and eventually lead to me being hunted down by a Coalition of the Willing consisting of bounty-hunters, credit card companies, and blood-thirsty IRS sharp-shooters. It—and those like it—will ruthlessly exterminate any and all who once made a living helping others work their complicated computers.
And all Steve Jobs can do is smile, smile and tout its “superior functionality” and “amazing simplicity.” I’m disgusted.
If you don’t know what I mean, go ahead and buy a copy of iLife and give iWeb a try. Create a basic web page with a homepage, a blog, a podcast, etc. Once you’ve spent, say, 30 seconds in the app, you’ll realize what I discovered the moment I opened it: It is quite possibly one of the easiest-to-use Apple apps ever.
Want to make a new page? No problemo: File > New Page, select the page style, fill in the necessary text, and blammo. How about a blog? Simple, select a new Blog page and add entries as you please. Oh, and don’t worry about the RSS feed: iWeb does all of that without you ever even knowing. How about a podcast? Just pop into GarageBand, record your podcast, and export it, yes, directly to iWeb, where the page will be updated accordingly and the feed will be ready to go once you effortlessly hit “Publish.” That’s it.
Changing images is as easy as drag-and-drop, and adding text … well, remember that first time you tried MacWrite, and you had to carry around a diaper for the next few weeks? Yeah, it’s kinda like that.
What I’m getting at is that iWeb has done something no other app has ever tried: It crossed the line between the durability of desktop-publishing and the linear-construction of online content. And it does it in a way so simple, so intuitive, you don’t even need to minimally understand the basic concept of web development to create a fully-functioning, visually-pleasing website.
And all of us folks sitting on the sidelines eagerly asking, “Can I help you with that?” are being shot down with confident bursts of “No thanks! I got it!”
In the past, people needed dumbed-down computer books to understand everything from word processing to calendar management. Software was difficult to use, and the average computer user’s inexperience only compounded the problem—reinforcing the need for people like me to simplify the tech and make people’s lives easier. But now that computers and software-based technologies are virtually ubiquitous, and Apple continually raises the bar when it comes to unbelievable simplicity, basic computer tasks no longer need the in-depth explanation once required for almost anything anyone ever did on their machines. And my job—and the jobs of my fellow tech-writers—just got a whole lot more complicated.
If iWeb is the start of a new era of easy-computing for the most basic of consumer…well, its going to be a grim future indeed.
Who knows, maybe someone will contract me to write a 25-page iWeb instruction booklet and pay me 200% commission on each copy sold.
Until then, iWeb is still a stupid piece of crap.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
