A 17-year-old high school student glued his eyes to his computer screen, desperately trying to focus on his physics teacher while hearing a consistent ding coming from his phone as he received a surge of notifications.

He finally caved in and reached for his phone. Fifty thousand people had downloaded his app within the last hour.

Aryan Nambiar, freshman in Engineering, created the app, Tune Track, which allows users to gain access to specific statistics about their listening habits on Spotify or Apple Music that the apps don’t offer.

The app now has over two million downloads.

“I was in complete and utter shock,” Nambiar said. “It was the best feeling ever — watching all of your hard work actually turn into something.”

Nambiar got the idea for Tune Track when he noticed that popular music streaming apps only offered users access to a reports of their top artists, songs and albums once a year. He wanted to create something that gave listeners more insight into their listening habits year-round.

Nambiar said it’s difficult to balance the intensive workload that comes with majoring in computer science at the University and working for a start-up.

However, Nambiar is no stranger to multitasking.

He created his app, Tune Track, last year during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He learned to manage his online senior year at Barrington High School while coding for Tune Track.

“I was so proud watching Aryan spend all day and all night just coding his app,” said Keegan Teal, Nambiar’s friend from high school and roommate at the University. “We (Nambiar’s friends) all did as much as we could to help him with classes as he worked so hard on his app.”

Nambiar said the amount of traction the app has gotten since he first developed it can be overwhelming. He said it hasn’t been easy going.

“Yes, it was extremely exciting, but it was also super overwhelming,” Nambiar said. “My app was glitching because of the sudden surge of downloads, and I was met with a surge of criticism.”

Thousands of people began to email and leave ratings complaining about the glitching and bugs in the app.

“It was hard to deal with mentally,” Nambiar said. “Usually apps have a team behind them, but Tune Track was just me. I poured everything I had into the app, so the negative reviews can be a lot.”

When Nambiar begins to feel overwhelmed, he likes to remember his initial love for coding.

Nambiar first started coding in middle school with his school-issued computer for fun. He taught himself how to code, and he would create small projects for fun.

One of his first projects was coding a device that would easily find the answers to the trivia questions of the app HQ Trivia. He was able to sell his code to multiple people online.

Nambiar now works for a start-up called Riff, helping to create their mobile app. He hopes to create his own start-up with his degree in computer science.

“Coding allows me to take an idea and turn it into reality — it’s the future,” Nambiar said. “No matter what I end up doing, I never want to lose my love and passion for computer science.”

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