Snaps X
Snapz Pro X 2
Snap Art is a Photoshop plug-in that turns your photography into beautiful works of art with a single click. Painting software. Snapz Pro X loads with Mac OS X by default and you need to press the z+Shift+3 keys to activate it. We'll explore the capture options later in this review. To cut a long story short, let me tell you that my first movie capture of a PowerPoint presentation with Snapz Pro X exceeded my expectations.
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, video games |
| Founded | August 18, 1993; 28 years ago |
| Defunct | July 19, 2019; 2 years ago[citation needed] |
| Headquarters | Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Andrew Welch | |
| Products | Sharewarevideo games and utilities |
| Website | http://www.ambrosiasw.com |
Ambrosia Software was a predominantly Macintoshsoftware company founded in 1993 and located in Rochester, New York, U.S. Ambrosia Software was best known for its Macintosh remakes of older arcade games, which began with a 1992 version of Atari, Inc.'s Asteroids from 1979. The company also published utility software. Its products were distributed as shareware; demo versions could be downloaded and used for up to 30 days. Later the company released some products for iOS. Ambrosia's best-selling program was the utility Snapz Pro X,[1][2] according to a 2002 interview with company president Andrew Welch.
In 2017, customers reported on Ambrosia's Facebook page that attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful and they were unable to make new purchases.[3] As of July 2019, the website is offline. As of May 2021, the website resolves but leads to a domain parking page with ads unconnected to the company.
History[edit]
Info on Back to My Mac; Bonjour for Windows Web site; Download Bonjour for Windows; Chapter 15. Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) Snapz Pro X Web site; Download Snapz Pro X; Chapter 16. IMic Web site; Download QuickTime Player 7; Dragon Dictate; Ink (Free PDF Appendix) Chapter 17. Setting Up a Dial-Up Connection (Free PDF Appendix) iCloud Web site. Snapz Pro X lets you export your images as a wide variety of file types: bmp, pict, gif, jpg, png, tiff, pdf, and PhotoShop files. You can even record your actions as helpful QuickTime movies. Mac-native power, for smoother performance. Snapz Pro takes full advantage of its Mac-native design, giving you access to of-the-minute features like.
Ambrosia Software was incorporated August 18, 1993, by Andrew Welch after he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992.[4]The first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a 1992 remake of the 1979 Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom won a number of software awards.[5] This initial success led Ambrosia to release several more arcade-style games, including Apeiron (a remake of Centipede), Swoop (a clone of Galaxian), and Barrack (a clone of JezzBall). In 1999, Cameron Crotty of Macworld wrote that 'No other company has gotten so much mileage out of renovating mid-1980s arcade hits.'[6]
Nearly all of the company's ten employees were laid off in 2013, but Welch denied rumors of the company shutting down.[7] In late 2018, the company's last remaining employee announced that Ambrosia was officially shutting down its operations.[8]
Products[edit]
Games[edit]
Ambrosia Software's games, in order of release:
- Maelstrom — Asteroids remake
- Chiral
- Apeiron — Centipede remake
- Swoop — Galaxian clone
- Barrack — JezzBall clone[9]
- Bubble Trouble — Pengo remake
- Harry the Handsome Executive
- Slithereens
- Cythera
- Deimos Rising
- Coldstone game engine
- Bubble Trouble X — Mac OS Xport of original, with minor gameplay changes
- pop-pop
- Uplink — Mac OS X port
- Aki
- Apeiron X — Mac OS X port of the original, with enhanced graphics
- Darwinia — Mac OS X port
- DEFCON — Mac OS X port
- pop-pop — Universal Binary release
- Uplink — Universal Binary release
- Aki — Universal Binary release
- Mondo Solitaire
- Aki — iPhone/iPod Touch release
- Aquaria — Mac OS X port
- Escape Velocity Nova — Universal Binary release
- Multiwinia — Mac OS X port
- Hypnoblocks
Ambrosia, in conjunction with DG Associates, has also released the Escape Velocity Nova Card Game.[10]
Productivity software[edit]
Ambrosia Software's utilities, in order of release:
- Eclipse — Screen saver CDEV
- Big Cheese Key — FKey to mask screen image from boss.
- FlashWrite — Text editor Desk Accessory
- FlashWrite ][
- ColorSwitch — Menu bar item to change monitor color depth
- EasyEnvelopes — Envelope printing Desk accessory. Later a Mac OS X v10.4 and Mac OS X v10.5Dashboard widget.
- Snapz
- To Do!
- Oracle
- ColorSwitch Pro
- Snapz Pro — Screen capture application
- iSeek — Desktop search application
- Snapz Pro X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original
- WireTap Pro — Audio recording utility
- Screen Cleaner Pro — April Fool's joke
- Dragster — File transfer application
- iToner — iPhone custom ringtone transfer utility
- WireTap Studio — Audio recording, editing and master storage; won a 2007 'Eddy Award' from Macworld
- 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.
- Soundboard — Mac OS X Audio playback ('computerized cart machine')
- Big Cheese Key X — Mac OS X-compatible version of original
Shareware policies[edit]
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, creating what is commonly called nagware.[11]
This policy was later changed and the company employed typical shareware piracy prevention measures,[12] as well as more innovative ones such as used in the Escape Velocity line of games where the team's mascot, Hector the Parrot (known in-game as Cap'n Hector), would use her heavily armed ship to ceaselessly attack players of unregistered copies after the trial period had expired. Their software products therefore began to fall under the category of crippleware.[12] Now that the company no longer provides new expiring license codes, customers who had purchased Ambrosia software are now treated as though they have expired trial versions, meaning, for instance, that Cap'n Hector's attacks in Escape Velocity games cannot be stopped.
Matt Slot has written about the factors that played into the policy change.[11]
References[edit]
Snap Pro X
- ^'MacSlash Interview: Andrew Welch of Ambrosia'. MacSlash (retrieved from the Internet Archive). January 23, 2002. Archived from the original on December 31, 2007. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
- ^More information on Snapz Pro X
- ^'Ambrosia Software'. Facebook. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
- ^'Home-grown Ambrosia feeds software niche', Michael Saffran. In RIT: The University Magazine, Vol. 10, #1
- ^'Into the Maelstrom'. The Mac Observer. December 8, 1999. Archived from the original on June 8, 2011. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
- ^Crotty, Cameron (January 1999). 'Mars Rising'. Macworld.
- ^Mathis, Joel (April 11, 2013). 'Despite layoffs, Ambrosia says it's still in business'. Macworld.
- ^'Bonus: The Rise & Fall of Ambrosia Software, '90s Mac Legends - PAX Aus 2019 talk'.
- ^Salvador, Phil (May 17, 2012). 'Barrack'. The Obscuritory.
- ^Cohen, Peter (October 20, 2004). 'Ambrosia makes Darwinia and EV board game'. Macworld. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
- ^ abSlot, Matt (March 11, 2002). 'The Plain Truth about Casual Software Piracy'. TidBITS. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
- ^ abWelch, Andrew (January 22, 2000). 'Ambrosia Times: President's Letter: On CDs and Shareware'. Ambrosia Software. Archived from the original on March 22, 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2011.
External links[edit]
- Official website (archived June 18, 2019)
- The Ambrosia Archive (a fan-run archive of Ambrosia Software installers)