What is iCloud, MobileMe, and iWeb?

If you’re looking to run and operate your website from an Apple device such as an iPad, an iPod Touch, or an iPhone, now is a very confusing time to be doing it. You could once just use MobileMe, and that would let you build your entire website right from your device. This is no longer the case, as MobileMe was no longer available as of June 2012. So what are people supposed to do when they want to run a website from an Apple device? And where does this term “iCloud” come into the picture?

MobileMe was the website publisher that webmasters could use to publish their website to the Internet from their Apple device. That service on its own has been officially discontinued by Apple and at this time, there is no other Apple-specific. iCloud is a service offered by Apple that will wirelessly sync your different Apple devices, as well as any Apple computers that you have. When MobileMe was officially discontinued, iCloud also took over many of its functions including an address book, a calendar, mail, and the backup features that once helped form MobileMe. iCloud however, is not yet available. It will be later this year when iOS5 and OS X Lion are released.

Just to confuse the matter even further, there is iWeb, something that is also no longer available from Apple. iWeb once helped the owner of an Apple hosted website to create their pages and make changes to them, just not publish them through MobileMe. There was a lot of speculation that Apple was also going to discontinue iWeb along with MobileMe, and for a number of reasons. The speculation came from the fact that Apple discontinued iWeb in the App Store, and that it was no longer installed on new Apple computers once OS X Lion came out. Because it had been rumored for over a year that MobileMe would be discontinued, other services and web hosts started emerging, offering different alternatives for those that used MobileMe.

Because of all the different services that are available (and one that isn’t,) many people thought that they could publish their website through iCloud. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. While iCloud did work together with MobileMe, they were completely separate services with completely different functions. iCloud is strictly for syncing your devices, which will make it easier to publish your website from anywhere. But it won’t do any more than that, and you certainly can’t publish your website from it.

iWeb, iCloud, MobileMe – it can all be very confusing; especially if you’ve chosen now as the time to start your very first Apple webpage. Sorting it all out isn’t difficult though, as you’ll only be able to use what’s available to you. And, for those services that are discontinued, you still have plenty of options available for publishing your Apple website.