Ambrosia Software

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Ambrosia Software
Type Private
Founded August 18, 1993
Headquarters Rochester, New York
Key people Andrew Welch — President
Industry Software industry/Computer and video game industry
Products Shareware games and utilities
Website http://www.ambrosiasw.com/

Ambrosia Software is a predominantly Macintosh software company located in Rochester, New York. Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Its products are distributed as shareware; demo versions can be downloaded and used for up to 30 days.

Ambrosia's best-selling program is the utility Snapz Pro X[1], although the company is better known for the production and the distribution of games. Incorporated August 18, 1993 by its president, Andrew Welch, after graduating from the RIT in 1992[2], the first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a remake of the Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom quickly became popular in the Macintosh community, and won a number of software awards.[3]

This initial success led Ambrosia to release several more arcade-style games. These included Apeiron (a remake of Centipede), and Swoop (a remake of Galaxian).

The unofficial mascot of Ambrosia Software is Hector the Parrot.

Contents

[edit] Products

[edit] Anti-Productivity Software (Games)

Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release:

Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova Card Game.

[edit] Productivity Software

Ambrosia Software's utilities, in descending order of release:

  • WireTap Studio — Audio recording, editing and master storage; won a 2007 "Eddy Award" from Macworld
  • iToner — iPhone custom ringtone transfer utility
  • Dragster — File transfer application
  • EasyEnvelopes — Mac OS X v10.4 and Mac OS X v10.5 Dashboard widget
  • Screen Cleaner Pro — April Fool's joke
  • WireTap Pro — Audio recording utility
  • Snapz Pro X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original
  • iSeek — Desktop search application
  • Snapz Pro— Screen capture application
  • ColorSwitch Pro
  • Eclipse

[edit] Upcoming Products

Ambrosia's announced upcoming games and utilities, as of June 2008, include:

  • Aquaria — Mac OS X port
  • WireTap Anywhere — professional virtual audio patchbay utility, enabling the recording of any Mac OS X application's audio output from within any Mac OS X audio application.

[edit] Community

Ambrosia Software has gathered a sizeable following in the Macintosh community in part due to forum-based discussion of its products, and the outgoing personalities of the company's employees. Mainly supported through the company's web site forums and their IRC server (irc.ambrosia.net), the community lists over 20,000 members with support forums for each of Ambrosia's utilities and games, complemented by general discussion forums focusing on politics, graphics, games and general camaraderie.

[edit] "Crippled" shareware

One of Ambrosia's founding mantras was that shareware software should not be distributed as crippleware. The company's software was released on the honor system with only a short reminder that you had used the unregistered software for "x" amount of time; so-called nagware. This policy has since been changed and the company today employs typical shareware piracy prevention measures. Their software products now fall under the category of crippleware. An article in the company's newsletter, the Ambrosia Times, outlines the factors that played into the policy change.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ MacSlash Interview: Andrew Welch of Ambrosia
  2. ^ "Home-grown Ambrosia feeds software niche", Michael Saffran. In RIT: The University Magazine, Vol. 10, #1
  3. ^ Into the Maelstrom. The Mac Observer (199-12-08). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
  4. ^ The Ambrosia Times Newsletter

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Ambrosia Software
Games
Software
Coldstone game engine · ColorSwitch Pro · Dragster · EasyEnvelopes · Eclipse · iSeek · Screen Cleaner Pro · Snapz Pro · Snapz Pro X · WireTap Pro