Apple eliminating HomePage app for .Mac users

Apple has sent out an e-mail to .Mac (MobileMe) subscribers announcing that as of July 7th, 2009, the .Mac HomePage application will be removed from the service. Upon hearing this news, my first questions was, “What’s HomePage?” My second questions was, “What’re they going to kill next? Pippin? CyberDoc?”

I actually used the HomePage app at one point to try to lay out my .Mac site back in the day, but found it almost as unpleasant as working in Microsoft FrontPage. Although not perfect, iWeb is just a much better app that offers more power while retaining the ease of use required for simply, quickly generated websites. HomePage will not be missed, and I’m actually surprised to find out it’s still around. I mean, seriously…look at that brushed aluminum interface! It may as well be System 6.0!

From the e-mail:

On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you’ve already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.

Instead of HomePage, we recommend the other sharing features of your MobileMe membership. With MobileMe Gallery, you can share photos online directly from iPhoto or the web application at www.me.com. And using iWeb on your Mac, you can create custom websites and blogs and publish them to MobileMe.

If you’ve been putting off learning iWeb or competing applications such as RapidWeaver, here’s your incentive. Although working directly online with HomePage had its perks (it was actually pretty good for organizing your online files, even if the design templates were pretty bad), the capabilities of iWeb and its corresponding tools outweigh the convenience of HomePage. Take a look now, and I’ll be surprised if you’re not done with HomePage within a week.