The World’s First iPhone With a Working USB-C Port Is Now Up for Auction

Last month, engineering scholar Ken Pillonel confirmed off the world’s first iPhone with a USB-C port, and now Pillonel has returned to disclose how he did it whereas additionally placing his customized USB-C iPhone up for public sale.

Like many, Pillonel had change into annoyed that Apple nonetheless hasn’t added USB-C ports to iPhones, so he grabbed an ordinary iPhone X and determined to make one on his personal. It’s not only a beauty modification both, as Pillonel stipulated that his customized USB-C iPhone should assist charging, information switch, and reversibility, whereas sustaining performance for the remainder of the iPhone’s elements. And after months of labor and tinkering, Pillonel finally succeeded, along with his profitable prototype now up for auction on eBay, with the present high bid sitting at just below $5,000.

However, earlier than you place a bid on the world’s first iPhone with a working USB-C port, it’s vital to notice that Pillonel says customers are prohibited from wiping, restoring, or updating the cellphone (which might presumably break the iPhone’s USB-C assist), opening the cellphone, or utilizing it as your every day driver, doubtless as a result of the gadget is extra of a proof of idea than a real on a regular basis workhorse.

Admittedly, $5,000 is loads to pay for a four-year-old iPhone (even one with a working USB-C port), so for anybody interested by constructing their very own, Pillonel additionally posted a video on YouTube documenting all of the work he did to make a working USB-C iPhone, together with a hyperlink to an open-source repository on GitHub containing all the mandatory recordsdata and information.

That mentioned, this isn’t the type of mod you’ll be able to simply whip up in a day, as Pillonel confronted plenty of challenges when making an attempt so as to add USB-C to an iPhone together with needing to reverse engineer Apple’s Lighting Connector, putting in a customized circuit board, and even modifying the iPhone’s physique to accommodate the USB-C ports barely bigger dimensions.

But in a time when the European Union is slowly working in direction of a mandate that will make USB-C the usual port on all telephones, Pillonel’s mission is so nice as a result of not solely does it show that an iPhone with USB-C just isn’t a pipe dream, however that sooner or later, iPhones and Android telephones may share the identical charging port in concord with none actual loss in efficiency or performance.