Does Apple plan to update iWeb?

Question

I've enjoyed using iWeb 09 for just over a year, but I'm beginning to wonder if this program is going to be around in the future. I'm a small business guy with limited time to spend on making a web site, so if Apple is going to ditch iWeb I think I'd rather spend my time learning another web-design tool like Sandvox. It's a pain to start over with another program, but I can't see any alternative if iWeb is headed nowhere. Does anyone share my concern?

Answer 1

So glad you asked! Don't get me wrong--I love iweb. But as a small business, I feel like I am outgrowing it and I really hope  Apple will recognize that many small businesses use this program and wish it had a few more "business" features. For example:
SEO
A built-in store for customer purchases using PayPal
Ability to create custom templates that can be used across ALL pages. Right now, if you create a custom look (not using one of the provided templates), you have to manually duplicate it for every page. There is no way to save it as a template. For someone with lots of pages, that is tedious and time-consuming. I am in the process of redesigning my site. As a new user, I just picked an existing template. Now I want to create a custom look and I have. But in order to duplicate it on my existing pages, I have to manually update each one. I have worked with the One-to-One group at my local Apple retail store and the Business Specialists. But they tell me that there is no way to switch over my existing pages without manually reworking each one, and I have lots of pages.
Seamless integration with Google Analytics
Search function on every page. Customers/Readers are often looking for specific content and it would be helpful if they had the ability to search for it regardless of where they are in the site.
Drop-down Navigation Bar
Contact page with automatic response to customers who want to subscribe to blog or updates
Newsletter integration with sign-up form and auto-responder
Ability to customize headers, footers and sidebars particularly for navigation to other pages and allow them to be selected for use on any pages
Ability to Email a link to individual pages. Right now you can only email the URL address of the home page. This doesn't allow you to send someone a link to a specific article or blog page.
The ability to assign default settings for subsequent pages for things like font type and sizes. This should be flexible enough to change if needed, but right now (because we can't set custom templates), we have to change the settings for each individual page.
The pages load slowly and if you have imbedded video, this is even slower. Not all customers have the fastest download speed.
Thanks so much--I really do hope that Apple will decide that the future of iweb is more than home use! It has SO MUCH potential for small businesses.