Abhinay Ashutosh knows what it means to be a busy college student. The sophomore CAS and Stern student, who is double majoring in computer science and business, felt it was important for himself to keep his chaotic schedule — classes, homework, extracurriculars — organized. Now, thanks to him, there’s an app for that.
Ashutosh designed and created Event Book, a calendar app that functions as an all-in-one personal organizer. It offers additional features to former calendar apps, such as maps, weather and location. The app recently released its second version on Sept. 6.
“I think it’s for anyone who needs to manage their life,” Ashutosh said.
Ashutosh became fascinated with computer coding and began teaching himself to code his freshman year of high school.
Using Apple’s Xcode, a free program downloaded from the Mac app store, Ashutosh designed and coded Event Book. He then used the website iTunes Connect to license the app and make it available for free download on the app store. Event Book 1.0 debuted in February 2013, and Ashutosh said it has been downloaded over 70,000 times.
Different calendar screens allow users to view schedules by day, week or month. Scroll through dates vertically to see past and upcoming month events in Month Book, and flip through dates horizontally to see weekly schedules in Week Book.
The app keeps users’ events organized by integrating features that would require using multiple apps. Weather technology makes it easy for someone to dress for rain or bring an umbrella, for example, and maps allows users to easily access directions to the specific places they’re going.
Ashutosh, an avid calendar user, was inspired to create his own calendar app when he found Apple’s iOS calendar did not lay out his schedule clearly.
“With the iOS calendar, it was very hard to add events and see events, see when I was free,” Ashutosh said.
“I like the Event Book’s different interfaces,” CAS sophomore Alex Pastron said. “I really like being able to see my schedule for the upcoming days, weeks or months.”
In the 2.0 version, users can change the color scheme of event lists, and the update gives the calendar an edge-to-edge display.
“The way I see Event Book fitting into my own life I think is more of a learning experience in terms of design, business, marketing, [public relations] and, of course, coding,” Ashutosh said. “I think my main focus is starting an actual company, not around this, but based [on] what I’ve learned here rather than making another app.”
A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, Sept. 12 print edition. Nicole Del Mauro is a contributing writer. Email her at [email protected].
