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Ask HN: What Software Did You Pay For In 2012

36 points by crisnoble 14y ago

What software or apps did you find worth breaking out your wallet for in 2012?

c16 14y ago
Spotify, some android apps and I plan on buying Sublime soon.
crisnoble 14y ago
LastPass Premium, best $12 dollars I have ever spent.
- lucastheisen 14y ago
  Agreed... On my second year of $12 and happy as day one.
- Kraftwurm 14y ago
  Same here...
caw 14y ago
IntelliJ during it's 75% off sale. I'm still experimenting with it, but overall it seems solid and better for Ruby than my previously used Textmate or Aptana Studio. I also bought a couple of games, split equally between PC and PS3.
- zerovox 14y ago
  Similarly, I bought WebStorm. I'm happy enough with Eclipse and at work we have a few plugins for the build system, but I'm not a fan of Aptana, so WebStorm seemed like a nice IDE for JS related projects, and in the 75% sale it was $12 or something, definitely worth the price. I've bought a few games in the Steam sales over the year.
fogus 14y ago
Both for the iPad: * SmartGo Kifu * OOTP Baseball
jeremyswank 14y ago
Sublime Text
quicksilver03 14y ago
IntelliJ IDEA ClassicShell SecureCRT SmartGit Copernic Desktop Search xplorer2
rrreese 14y ago
Lightroom, Resharper, Sublime Text. Then several of the Humble bundles and a dozen games on Steam.
citricsquid 14y ago
http://logmein.com http://logmein.com for remote desktop (subscription) http://www.displayfusion.com http://www.displayfusion.com for multi-screen management http://mirc.com http://mirc.com for irc
- glomph 14y ago
  Haha, people still use mirc!?
Derbasti 14y ago
SublimeText 2. What a great piece of software. And on a completely unrelated note, I then got thoroughly enamoured with Emacs. Thus donated some money to that.
sergiotapia 14y ago
RubyMine from JetBrains.
frou_dh 14y ago
I feel CloudPull was a good buy. It means I'm not vulnerable to data loss if Google decides to freeze my account, like you sometimes hear about. http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com
- johnsbrayton 14y ago
  I am the developer of CloudPull. Thank you for the link and the kind words.
eze 14y ago
Sublime Text. Better Terminal Emulator Pro.
gbog 14y ago
Android's Minecraft, BubbleUpnp, Music Folder Player.
jacobmarble 14y ago
100GB on Google Drive.
weslly 14y ago
- Transmit - Sparrow (RIP) - Tweetbot for mac - Kaleidoscope - Echofon for mac (RIP) - DragonDrop - Daisy Disk - Codekit - Alfred's Powerpack (2x) - 1Password - Sublime SFTP - ColorSchemer Studio - DayOne - Reeder +lots of cheap apps at app store
bilawal 14y ago
iA Writer & Sublime Text 2
cperciva 14y ago
FreeBSD: http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting-those-who-support-us.html http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting-those-...
k-mcgrady 14y ago
Evernote Premium (I store everything in this including photos of handwritten notes which it makes searchable) Aperture (I'm not a photographer but I prefer this over iPhoto and Google's Picasa) Sublime Text 2 (Excellent piece of software)
mseebach 14y ago
Spotify (I guess more of a service than a piece of software) Wikipedia £5/month donation Civilization V
jacobwg 14y ago
Sublime Text 2, CrashPlan, all the 2012 Humble Bundles, and assorted iOS apps.
tomasien 14y ago
Coda 2. I understand the Sublime Text crew is probably going to yell at me, but I freakin LOVE Coda. Oh, also Spotify Premium. I'm not sure if that counts. Still looking for a CRM simple enough to be worth paying for, but it's not happenin. I'm building one myself I suppose!
eliben 14y ago
I'm surprised no-one said Dropbox yet. I upgraded to their 100GB account which is now my main backup drive. Also paid for some iPad games for my daughter :-)
- msutherl 14y ago
  I did the Google Adwords trick (advertising your Dropbox referral link) to bump my account up to 17GB. ~$20.
- icebraining 14y ago
  I'm surprised no-one said Dropbox yet. Well, I paid for Tarsnap and Backblaze, but I don't consider them "software", but services. Maybe others felt the same regarding Dropbox?
onlyup 14y ago
Some Android apps/games on sale at .99c or less, that's it.
rnirnber 14y ago
Mono for Android
ivanb 14y ago
Toodledo
mkrecny 14y ago
As a consumer : http://followgen.com http://followgen.com As a developer : iron.io optimizely stripe
istvanp 14y ago
PassPack, RubyMine and PhpStorm. I found LastPass quite horrible to use compared to PassPack.
msutherl 14y ago
xScope: http://xscopeapp.com/ http://xscopeapp.com/ Soulver: http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/
FigBug 14y ago
MSDN Subscription Mountain Lion Acorn A bunch of iOS Apps
contingencies 14y ago
Mobile software: None at all. Desktop software: OSX (on a new Mac), SourceTree (http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ .. now part of Atlassian), Viscosity (http://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/ http://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/). Other than some random games through Steam, that's it. I pay for VMWare every 2 years or so, as well. Cloud stuff: Only normal VPS hosting, and some domain names.
rprime 14y ago
Games, workflowy.com and Sublime Text 2.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Probably half a dozen iPad apps (I'm looking for a good drawing solution) tax prep software, AnyDVD, my renewal/subscription to Proteus (eCAD), Mass Effect (PS3). Earlier in the year I had paid for World of Warcraft but that has since lapsed.
jpdus 14y ago
PyCharm (and even added another year during the doomsday sale)
taylorlapeyre 14y ago
Let's see... - Sublime Text 2 - iA Writer - Tweetbot - Alfred - PHPStorm & RubyMine - Rdio - Coda 2 - Things - FTL
jeroen94704 14y ago
Too many titles to list, but I essentially paid for two categories: Mobile apps (bought through the Play Store) and free software that I use regularly and that allowed/asked me to donate. I started setting aside a small amount every month for the latter category. Examples are XBMC, SickBeard, X-Notifier, Cyanogenmod, PortableApps and JellyTime.
victorantos 14y ago
Windows Azure, but it's too expensive, I might move my websites back on the old hosting provider
rplnt 14y ago
Quite a few games through Steam during sales and two Humble Bundles. I played maybe two (out of over 20) of those games. Then I bought 2 licenses for PyCharm during the 75% off sale, not intentionally of course. Hoping for a refund.
k00pa 14y ago
As far as I remember... Only games this year. All of my applications have been free in some form.
chown 14y ago
Mono for Android EZPdf reader for Android (not as good as GoodReader for iOS but better than any other pdf reader): (http://m.unidocs.com/ezPDF_Reader_Android_Pro.html http://m.unidocs.com/ezPDF_Reader_Android_Pro.html) Need for Speed for Android and Temple Run (only games I bought this time and) Spyglass for Windows (http://clockworkengine.com/ http://clockworkengine.com/) Reeder for Mac (I hardly use this though) CodeBox for Mac (http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/ http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/)
shriphani 14y ago
Sublime text 2 Goodnotes on iPad Some games on steam
lacerus 14y ago
- Crashplan.com backup - billomat.com invoicing - letsfreckle.com timetracking - mite.yo.lk timetracking - github - "Thomas Was Alone" game on steam - tons of iPhone apps
gunmetal 14y ago
Soundcloud, Github, SublimeText2, Carbon-Copy-Cloner, WinClone 3, Netflix, Spotify, Humble Indie Bundle 7
cschramm 14y ago
PhpStorm and RubyMine subscription renewals during Doomsday sale. :D
prezjordan 14y ago
Very refreshing to see all the Sublime Text 2 purchases - I myself have not yet purchased it (I barely use it compared to Vim). I purchased RubyMotion [1] thru a student license (80% off!) although admittedly I haven't used it all that much. I still get my money's worth out of CodeSchool [2]. [1]: http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/ [2]: http://www.codeschool.com/ http://www.codeschool.com/
hdra 14y ago
- Bunch of steam games on sale and Humble Bundles - Several android apps & games - Minecraft - Internet Download Manager (Windows) - Donated to some free softwares I use (GIMP, Blender) currently trying out ST2, not sure whether I'll buy it yet,,
tehdik 14y ago
iaWriter Pictos Day One Tweetbot Coda 2 Starcraft 2 Civ 5 CS 6 CSS Hat Dropbox Color Snapper Spotify
jlarocco 14y ago
Pixelmator Emacs for OSX Diablo 3 SteerMouse An OSX upgrade Civilization 4 (was cheap in the Mac App Store, but I never ended up playing much) GTA 3 for OSX (also cheap, also only played a few times) If we're including web services, then also: GitHub SmugMug Vimeo Flickr
trvrprkr 14y ago
Sublime Text 2, Logic Pro, Rdio, 1Password for iOS, and a small handful of other iOS apps.
funkiee 14y ago
1Password for Mac and iOS, because remembering 50 passwords sucks and having only 5 leaves you really exposed when something like PSN gets compromised.
fallenhitokiri 14y ago
Sublime Text 2, iA Writer, Pages / Numbers / Keynote (iOS + OSX), Reeder (iPad), CS6
gabrielrdz 14y ago
Resharper 7 (with the 75% off), Day One, Transmit FTP for OSX.
bsenftner 14y ago
Maya 2013, anti-virus, os x upgrade
reiz 14y ago
Sublime Text 2 TextMate GitHub
flyinglizard 14y ago
Goodreader on iPad (fantastic), and some random games. Some odd Android stuff. iRacing on PC. This game has made me its crack ho. I keep buying cars like I'm the Sultan of Brunei. For the closest thing to real racing, nothing comes close.
suyash 14y ago
IntelliJ during it's 75% sale and Cornerstone from Mac App Store. I also paid this year for Skype and Google Talk during my trip abroad. All were great deals but IntelliJ was the best investment of them all.
zem 14y ago
humble indie bundles
deutronium 14y ago
BeerSmith - an excellent program which helps you come up with recipes for beer, tells you the estimated strength your beer will likely be, based on the grains etc. you choose. Github - Love the UI
callandor 14y ago
Mountain Lion. Parallels 8. Windows 8. 1Password. I can never decide whether I don't really need that many applications, most applications I buy have long lives, or there are so many great free applications that I rarely need to buy something. Probably some combinations of the above.
oz 14y ago
Postbox: http://www.postbox-inc.com/ http://www.postbox-inc.com/ Postbox is a fantastic desktop email client, based on Thunderbird. It's primarily geared toward Gmail / Google Apps users. Paid $10. Nirvana: https://www.nirvanahq.com/ https://www.nirvanahq.com/ Nirvana is a Getting-Things-Done Saas. $5/month
jamesjguthrie 14y ago
Quick Office HD Pro for iOS (the only productivity app I bought) A bunch of iOS games including GTA: Vice City Also bought CoD: Black Ops Zombies on iOS today but trying to get a refund as online multiplayer doesn't work and apparently hasn't worked for months. Apple should never have approved the most recent app update. A couple of XBLA games Spotify, does Xbox Live count? So, yeah. Mostly games.
leric 14y ago
Diablo3
da_n 14y ago
Software: * Sublime Text 2 * CodeKit * Transmit * OS X Mountain Lion * MAMP Pro * ColorSchemer Studio * Advanced Custom Fields Plugins (for WordPress) --- Android: * Pocket Casts * Nova Launcher Prime * ROM Toolbox Pro * TuneIn Radio Pro * Titanium Backup * Instapaper --- Services: * LastPass Premium * Pinboard.in * Audible * Instapaper
johncoltrane 14y ago
None. All the tools I use personally (vim, git, svn, bash, ubuntu…) are free. My employers takes care of the stuff he wants me to use. The only online "things" I pay for are my ISP, a Linode, a VPN, a few domain names and an old Dreamhost account. I don't have a smartphone/tablet so I didn't install any pointless 0.99$ app. I've bought a few second-hand videogames for my kids (DS/Wii), though, but that's not what you are asking for, I guess.
kristianp 14y ago
Win 8, and I haven't booted it for weeks.

36 points by crisnoble 14y ago

What software or apps did you find worth breaking out your wallet for in 2012?

c16 14y ago

Spotify, some android apps and I plan on buying Sublime soon.

crisnoble 14y ago

LastPass Premium, best $12 dollars I have ever spent.

lucastheisen 14y ago
Agreed... On my second year of $12 and happy as day one.
Kraftwurm 14y ago
Same here...

caw 14y ago

IntelliJ during it's 75% off sale. I'm still experimenting with it, but overall it seems solid and better for Ruby than my previously used Textmate or Aptana Studio. I also bought a couple of games, split equally between PC and PS3.

zerovox 14y ago
Similarly, I bought WebStorm. I'm happy enough with Eclipse and at work we have a few plugins for the build system, but I'm not a fan of Aptana, so WebStorm seemed like a nice IDE for JS related projects, and in the 75% sale it was $12 or something, definitely worth the price. I've bought a few games in the Steam sales over the year.

fogus 14y ago

Both for the iPad: * SmartGo Kifu * OOTP Baseball

jeremyswank 14y ago

Sublime Text

quicksilver03 14y ago

IntelliJ IDEA ClassicShell SecureCRT SmartGit Copernic Desktop Search xplorer2

rrreese 14y ago

Lightroom, Resharper, Sublime Text. Then several of the Humble bundles and a dozen games on Steam.

citricsquid 14y ago

http://logmein.com http://logmein.com for remote desktop (subscription) http://www.displayfusion.com http://www.displayfusion.com for multi-screen management http://mirc.com http://mirc.com for irc

glomph 14y ago
Haha, people still use mirc!?

Derbasti 14y ago

SublimeText 2. What a great piece of software. And on a completely unrelated note, I then got thoroughly enamoured with Emacs. Thus donated some money to that.

sergiotapia 14y ago

RubyMine from JetBrains.

frou_dh 14y ago

I feel CloudPull was a good buy. It means I'm not vulnerable to data loss if Google decides to freeze my account, like you sometimes hear about. http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com http://www.goldenhillsoftware.com

johnsbrayton 14y ago
I am the developer of CloudPull. Thank you for the link and the kind words.

eze 14y ago

Sublime Text. Better Terminal Emulator Pro.

gbog 14y ago

Android's Minecraft, BubbleUpnp, Music Folder Player.

jacobmarble 14y ago

100GB on Google Drive.

weslly 14y ago

- Transmit - Sparrow (RIP) - Tweetbot for mac - Kaleidoscope - Echofon for mac (RIP) - DragonDrop - Daisy Disk - Codekit - Alfred's Powerpack (2x) - 1Password - Sublime SFTP - ColorSchemer Studio - DayOne - Reeder +lots of cheap apps at app store

bilawal 14y ago

iA Writer & Sublime Text 2

cperciva 14y ago

FreeBSD: http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting-those-who-support-us.html http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2012-12-24-supporting-those-...

k-mcgrady 14y ago

Evernote Premium (I store everything in this including photos of handwritten notes which it makes searchable) Aperture (I'm not a photographer but I prefer this over iPhoto and Google's Picasa) Sublime Text 2 (Excellent piece of software)

mseebach 14y ago

Spotify (I guess more of a service than a piece of software) Wikipedia £5/month donation Civilization V

jacobwg 14y ago

Sublime Text 2, CrashPlan, all the 2012 Humble Bundles, and assorted iOS apps.

tomasien 14y ago

Coda 2. I understand the Sublime Text crew is probably going to yell at me, but I freakin LOVE Coda. Oh, also Spotify Premium. I'm not sure if that counts. Still looking for a CRM simple enough to be worth paying for, but it's not happenin. I'm building one myself I suppose!

eliben 14y ago

I'm surprised no-one said Dropbox yet. I upgraded to their 100GB account which is now my main backup drive. Also paid for some iPad games for my daughter :-)

msutherl 14y ago
I did the Google Adwords trick (advertising your Dropbox referral link) to bump my account up to 17GB. ~$20.
icebraining 14y ago
I'm surprised no-one said Dropbox yet. Well, I paid for Tarsnap and Backblaze, but I don't consider them "software", but services. Maybe others felt the same regarding Dropbox?

onlyup 14y ago

Some Android apps/games on sale at .99c or less, that's it.

rnirnber 14y ago

Mono for Android

ivanb 14y ago

Toodledo

mkrecny 14y ago

As a consumer : http://followgen.com http://followgen.com As a developer : iron.io optimizely stripe

istvanp 14y ago

PassPack, RubyMine and PhpStorm. I found LastPass quite horrible to use compared to PassPack.

msutherl 14y ago

xScope: http://xscopeapp.com/ http://xscopeapp.com/ Soulver: http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/ http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/

FigBug 14y ago

MSDN Subscription Mountain Lion Acorn A bunch of iOS Apps

contingencies 14y ago

Mobile software: None at all. Desktop software: OSX (on a new Mac), SourceTree (http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/ .. now part of Atlassian), Viscosity (http://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/ http://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/). Other than some random games through Steam, that's it. I pay for VMWare every 2 years or so, as well. Cloud stuff: Only normal VPS hosting, and some domain names.

rprime 14y ago

Games, workflowy.com and Sublime Text 2.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Probably half a dozen iPad apps (I'm looking for a good drawing solution) tax prep software, AnyDVD, my renewal/subscription to Proteus (eCAD), Mass Effect (PS3). Earlier in the year I had paid for World of Warcraft but that has since lapsed.

jpdus 14y ago

PyCharm (and even added another year during the doomsday sale)

taylorlapeyre 14y ago

Let's see... - Sublime Text 2 - iA Writer - Tweetbot - Alfred - PHPStorm & RubyMine - Rdio - Coda 2 - Things - FTL

jeroen94704 14y ago

Too many titles to list, but I essentially paid for two categories: Mobile apps (bought through the Play Store) and free software that I use regularly and that allowed/asked me to donate. I started setting aside a small amount every month for the latter category. Examples are XBMC, SickBeard, X-Notifier, Cyanogenmod, PortableApps and JellyTime.

victorantos 14y ago

Windows Azure, but it's too expensive, I might move my websites back on the old hosting provider

rplnt 14y ago

Quite a few games through Steam during sales and two Humble Bundles. I played maybe two (out of over 20) of those games. Then I bought 2 licenses for PyCharm during the 75% off sale, not intentionally of course. Hoping for a refund.

k00pa 14y ago

As far as I remember... Only games this year. All of my applications have been free in some form.

chown 14y ago

Mono for Android EZPdf reader for Android (not as good as GoodReader for iOS but better than any other pdf reader): (http://m.unidocs.com/ezPDF_Reader_Android_Pro.html http://m.unidocs.com/ezPDF_Reader_Android_Pro.html) Need for Speed for Android and Temple Run (only games I bought this time and) Spyglass for Windows (http://clockworkengine.com/ http://clockworkengine.com/) Reeder for Mac (I hardly use this though) CodeBox for Mac (http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/ http://www.shpakovski.com/codebox/)

shriphani 14y ago

Sublime text 2 Goodnotes on iPad Some games on steam

lacerus 14y ago

- Crashplan.com backup - billomat.com invoicing - letsfreckle.com timetracking - mite.yo.lk timetracking - github - "Thomas Was Alone" game on steam - tons of iPhone apps

gunmetal 14y ago

Soundcloud, Github, SublimeText2, Carbon-Copy-Cloner, WinClone 3, Netflix, Spotify, Humble Indie Bundle 7

cschramm 14y ago

PhpStorm and RubyMine subscription renewals during Doomsday sale. :D

prezjordan 14y ago

Very refreshing to see all the Sublime Text 2 purchases - I myself have not yet purchased it (I barely use it compared to Vim). I purchased RubyMotion [1] thru a student license (80% off!) although admittedly I haven't used it all that much. I still get my money's worth out of CodeSchool [2]. [1]: http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/ [2]: http://www.codeschool.com/ http://www.codeschool.com/

hdra 14y ago

- Bunch of steam games on sale and Humble Bundles - Several android apps & games - Minecraft - Internet Download Manager (Windows) - Donated to some free softwares I use (GIMP, Blender) currently trying out ST2, not sure whether I'll buy it yet,,

tehdik 14y ago

iaWriter Pictos Day One Tweetbot Coda 2 Starcraft 2 Civ 5 CS 6 CSS Hat Dropbox Color Snapper Spotify

jlarocco 14y ago

Pixelmator Emacs for OSX Diablo 3 SteerMouse An OSX upgrade Civilization 4 (was cheap in the Mac App Store, but I never ended up playing much) GTA 3 for OSX (also cheap, also only played a few times) If we're including web services, then also: GitHub SmugMug Vimeo Flickr

trvrprkr 14y ago

Sublime Text 2, Logic Pro, Rdio, 1Password for iOS, and a small handful of other iOS apps.

funkiee 14y ago

1Password for Mac and iOS, because remembering 50 passwords sucks and having only 5 leaves you really exposed when something like PSN gets compromised.

fallenhitokiri 14y ago

Sublime Text 2, iA Writer, Pages / Numbers / Keynote (iOS + OSX), Reeder (iPad), CS6

gabrielrdz 14y ago

Resharper 7 (with the 75% off), Day One, Transmit FTP for OSX.

bsenftner 14y ago

Maya 2013, anti-virus, os x upgrade

reiz 14y ago

Sublime Text 2 TextMate GitHub

flyinglizard 14y ago

Goodreader on iPad (fantastic), and some random games. Some odd Android stuff. iRacing on PC. This game has made me its crack ho. I keep buying cars like I'm the Sultan of Brunei. For the closest thing to real racing, nothing comes close.

suyash 14y ago

IntelliJ during it's 75% sale and Cornerstone from Mac App Store. I also paid this year for Skype and Google Talk during my trip abroad. All were great deals but IntelliJ was the best investment of them all.

zem 14y ago

humble indie bundles

deutronium 14y ago

BeerSmith - an excellent program which helps you come up with recipes for beer, tells you the estimated strength your beer will likely be, based on the grains etc. you choose. Github - Love the UI

callandor 14y ago

Mountain Lion. Parallels 8. Windows 8. 1Password. I can never decide whether I don't really need that many applications, most applications I buy have long lives, or there are so many great free applications that I rarely need to buy something. Probably some combinations of the above.

oz 14y ago

Postbox: http://www.postbox-inc.com/ http://www.postbox-inc.com/ Postbox is a fantastic desktop email client, based on Thunderbird. It's primarily geared toward Gmail / Google Apps users. Paid $10. Nirvana: https://www.nirvanahq.com/ https://www.nirvanahq.com/ Nirvana is a Getting-Things-Done Saas. $5/month

jamesjguthrie 14y ago

Quick Office HD Pro for iOS (the only productivity app I bought) A bunch of iOS games including GTA: Vice City Also bought CoD: Black Ops Zombies on iOS today but trying to get a refund as online multiplayer doesn't work and apparently hasn't worked for months. Apple should never have approved the most recent app update. A couple of XBLA games Spotify, does Xbox Live count? So, yeah. Mostly games.

leric 14y ago

Diablo3

da_n 14y ago

Software: * Sublime Text 2 * CodeKit * Transmit * OS X Mountain Lion * MAMP Pro * ColorSchemer Studio * Advanced Custom Fields Plugins (for WordPress) --- Android: * Pocket Casts * Nova Launcher Prime * ROM Toolbox Pro * TuneIn Radio Pro * Titanium Backup * Instapaper --- Services: * LastPass Premium * Pinboard.in * Audible * Instapaper

johncoltrane 14y ago

None. All the tools I use personally (vim, git, svn, bash, ubuntu…) are free. My employers takes care of the stuff he wants me to use. The only online "things" I pay for are my ISP, a Linode, a VPN, a few domain names and an old Dreamhost account. I don't have a smartphone/tablet so I didn't install any pointless 0.99$ app. I've bought a few second-hand videogames for my kids (DS/Wii), though, but that's not what you are asking for, I guess.

kristianp 14y ago

Win 8, and I haven't booted it for weeks.