On the contrary, I think the only thing that the lack of iDVD and iWeb indicate is the future of those two products, and those two products alone. I do not think that the non-inclusion of those two products, in any way, indicates the future of Lion or iLife.
I perhaps should have been more careful with my wording. My initial thoughts were about whether this indicated the future direction of iLife products, but my later thoughts were about how that, in turn, would relate to Apple's plans for the Mac platform, specifically for OS X and available applications.
I think the non-inclusion of iWeb and iDVD simply signals a future where burning DVDs (much like burning music CDs) doesn't have much of a future due to the digital streaming nature we are heading toward (iTunes movie rental/purchases, Netflix, etc.).
That may well be true, yes. This did cross my mind but, then again, there is the option of an external SuperDrive, so why not provide iDVD for those who may purchase this (or provide it with the purchase of the drive)?
Similarly, iWeb signals a future where everyone is not making their own web pages -- but rather integrating with larger, monolithic websites like Facebook, Twitter, and the like, to share family photos and videos. We no longer set up personal web pages -- we simply use larger social networks and services to accomplish the same thing. Which is why we now have Facebook integration with iPhoto -- we can publish movies and photos to the web just the same -- we just don't do it to our own, personal website... we do it to Facebook, instead.
Ah, I can certainly understand what you are saying and think you're largely right, but don't see why iWeb would be affected by the choice of hardware in this instance. Both MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs can connect to the internet and so the hardware differences would be less relevant here than for the exclusion of iDVD, I feel.
To see if it is simply about timing, I looked at the current MacBook Pros (released earlier in 2011, but newer ones come with Lion pre-installed and have a small change to one function key) and the Mac mini. The MacBook Pros come with iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand, so they still have these, two programs. Perhaps they have to be included, if they were included in the specs of the same system earlier in the year (potential problems with removal of functionality, etc.)? With the Mac mini, only iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand are included. The Mac mini does not have an optical drive but obviously can connect to the internet, and so the omission of iWeb is noticeable again.
Put together, it looks to me as though it is not about the specific hardware, but about how Apple sees the future, indicating that iDVD and iWeb will be dropped from iLife in future. I certainly could be wrong, we'll just have to wait and see!
