--- title: Shaquille O'Neal Spends $1000 a Week on Smartphone Apps description: The basketball star tells the Wall Street Journal that he spends $1000 a week on smartphone applications. canonical: https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/ author: Kyle Chayka article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-12T16:10:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:07:43.417Z og:title: Shaq Spends $1,000 a Week on Apps og:description: Most of it is deer hunting games? og:url: https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt664de6d74edae31e/6986851613c79f3545190fbf/shaq_time.png?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: shaq_time og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Shaq Spends $1,000 a Week on Apps twitter:description: Most of it is deer hunting games? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt664de6d74edae31e/6986851613c79f3545190fbf/shaq_time.png?branch=production&width=1080&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Shaq Spends $1,000 a Week on Apps by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Mar 12, 2014 4:10 PM UTC  Shaquille O'Neal talks tech Shaquille O'Neal talks techWall Street Journal by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka Mar 12, 2014 4:10 PM UTC Shaquille O’Neal has transitioned successfully from basketball player to technology investor—he picked up Google stock pre-IPO and once called Steve Jobs for an early iPhone (he didn’t get it). In the name of his tech expertise, he also spends $1,000 _a week_ buying apps. “I’m not afraid to say I’m a geek at heart,” Shaq tells the _Wall Street Journal_ in an interview. “I honestly spend about $1,000 on apps a week—real money. When I’m not working, I spend all my money on apps.” Shaq notes that last week, he bought about 20 deer hunting games, so the purchases might all be for work. Spending $1,000 is a real feat, however, given that the [average price](http://gigaom.com/2013/07/18/the-average-iphone-app-price-is-now-0-19-and-itll-probably-keep-shrinking/) of an iPhone app is just $.19\. That’s 5,263 apps. Impressive. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/"},"headline":"Shaq Spends $1,000 a Week on Apps","datePublished":"2014-03-12T16:10:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:07:43.417Z","description":"Most of it is deer hunting games?","url":"https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Basketball","Technology","apps","iPhone"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt664de6d74edae31e/6986851613c79f3545190fbf/shaq_time.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kyle Chayka","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt664de6d74edae31e/6986851613c79f3545190fbf/shaq_time.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"shaq_time","caption":"Shaquille O'Neal talks tech","creditText":"Wall Street Journal","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/21470/shaq-spends-1000-a-week-on-apps/","name":"Shaq Spends $1,000 a Week on Apps"}}]}] ```