OSU student’s health app gaining popularity on Play Store

Friday, September 18, 2015

An Oklahoma State University student created a health app for the OSU App Center’s annual App Building Competition sponsored by CSAA Insurance Group and AAA Oklahoma, and now, it has been downloaded almost 11,000 times.

Marcus Gabilheri created FitHub, an app that allows the user to connect and receive info from multiple fitness trackers such as the Fitbit, Jawbone UP2 and Moov Now. Users can also track their usage and compare it to their friends, even if their friends use a different fitness tracker. His app gained popularity when the Google Fit Developer Challenge featured his app as one of 12 grand prize-winning apps.

“The app has a 4.1 star rating,” Gabilheri said. “It’s nice to see my app featured with apps from companies like Adidas and Nike. I’m currently working on a new version of the app as well as an iOS version.”

Gabilheri placed first in the third annual App Building Competition in 2015 and received a $4,000 cash prize. Since then, he’s used the money to maintain the app and upgrade it.

“What I’ve gotten out of this is that I can’t make everyone happy,” he said. “Someone is always going to complain about my app, but continuing to program the app and solve challenges keeps me ahead of the game.”

The App Center was founded in February 2013 to facilitate app development on campus. It helps students and faculty develop mobile apps from their app ideas. The App Center creates about three to five apps per year. So far, most apps from the App Center are for Apple devices that use iOS and are free to download.

“We typically gather two clients,” said Jai Rajendran, manager of the App Center. “We work with students who have ideas, whether it be an app for golf or time management. We also work with faculty members who want to deliver their research products via an app.”

Gabilheri is a junior studying computer science. He’s due to graduate in 2017 and plans to move to Silicon Valley, California, and work for a tech company such as Google or Facebook.

FITHUB SCREENSHOTS: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ostatenews/albums/72157658674663521

Story by Matt Cohlmia