What Apple could never, Ken Pillonel, a Robotics Engineering student did and answered this one question “Will the iPhone use USB-C?”. Pilloner created waves when he made the world’s first and unique USB-C iPhone (more on that in a bit). Eventually, Pilloner put up the USB-C iPhone X for auction on eBay last week. Over time, the bidding price reached $85,000 over the week and finally sold on Thursday upon a final bid of $86,001.
This all started back in October when Pillonel shared glimpses of his months of research and hard work via a Shorts video (linked above) on his Youtube Channel. It appears to be that he reverse-engineered Apple’s C94 Lightning connector and in turn custom-made a PCB with a female USB-C port. All of this was made to fit into the iPhone to be able to get to the final solution.
Want to learn more? Watch Pillonel’s video that details the project from start to finish. The iPhone X utilized for the project was a pre-owned 64GB unit purchased off eBay itself.
The USB-C equipped iPhone as advised by Pillonel should not be used as a daily phone, erased or factory reset to avoid any potential issues. The project is open source and details of the same can be accessed on GitHub for those on a mission to build a modified USB-C iPhone. Also, stay tuned for a USB-C-equipped AirPods charging case from Pillonel in the near future.