This article was published on October 12, 2021

Impatient robotics engineer creates his own USB-C port iPhone — your move Tim Apple

USB-C life FTW


Impatient robotics engineer creates his own USB-C port iPhone — your move Tim Apple Image by: Ken Pi/YouTube

All of us have been praying and wanting to see Apple adopt USB-C for iPhones, instead of the current lightning port. While we don’t know when we’ll see such an official model, a robotics engineer has modded an iPhone X with a USB-C port.

Ken Pillone’s YouTube Shorts video, first spotted by Apple Insider, shows a working iPhone X model with the new charging port. The video shows the phone charging with a USB-C-based Mac charging brick. 

His blog post written in May describes how he aimed to use a combination of lightning and USB-C converters to finally install a USB-C female port as the primary charging input on the iPhone. When he started, he wanted to reverse engineer the Apple C94 connector board so that he can accommodate USB-C components.

By September, he made his own flexible PCB to fit inside the current iPhone X body to enable USB-C charging. Pillone finally completed his project this month. 

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Now it might not be possible for an everyday joe to go through the process of acquiring electronic components and modifying an iPhone. So for now, we’ll have to be satisfied in the knowledge that some sort of engineering hack can get you to a USB-C iPhone.

Also, it’s important to remember that if you’re any modifications like these, your iPhone will be out of warranty for repairs as per Apple’s terms and conditions.

Now it’s your turn to make USB-C iPhone a reality, Tim Apple.

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