Adobe Takes on Apple’s iWeb with Muse - Website Creation Tool

A web site creation tool by Adobe Systems may become the replacement of Apple’s iWeb. Mac users looking to create a web site without coding skills may see themselves forced to employ this third party solution when the Cupertino technology giant will kill off its own tool for creating sites.

With the launch of iCloud, Apple will no longer support a number of services like iWeb, Gallery and iDisk.

iWeb is a standalone application and part of the iLife suite.

The program assists users in creating rich, vivid web sites, and although it has served both customers and Apple well, the iLife suite will move on without it, according to sources in the industry.

This is where Adobe steps in and saves the day with an HTML5-ready website creation tool:

“Create websites as easily as you create layouts for print. You can design and publish original HTML pages to the latest web standards without writing code. Now in beta, Muse makes it a snap to produce unique, professional websites,” reads the description.

Muse offers easy-to-use master pages, sitemaps, and a range of flexible, site-wide tools that make it a breeze to get a site planned out and ready for design.

In a nutshell, Muse lets you “focus on design rather than technology,” as Adobe puts it.

Adobe is offering Muse on a subscription-only model. According to the Flash maker, “This will allow us to add new features to Muse regularly and customers will always have access to the most up-to-date functionality which is critical when building standards-based content that is cross-browser compatible.”

When the beta expires, existing users will be able to upgrade (US $15.00 per month; US $180.00 per year).

According to Adobe Systems, the initial version of Muse will be released in early 2012. Also, Muse is a code name. The end product may eventually be named differently.