Apple people, am I right?
Ken Pillonel, who’s studying for a Master’s degree in Robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is probably going to make some bank. And all thanks to an iPhone X he modded to have a fully functioning USB-C port.
Pillonel uploaded some video of his work last month; though the inception of the idea had been in mind for some time. At least, based on a post he made back in May:
The motivations behind the project are simple. I just want an iPhone with USB Type-C on it. Why? Because everything I own has USB Type-C so it would be pretty neat to convert an iPhone too. Have one charger and one cable to charge everything.
At some point, he decided to auction the modified device off. And if the bid history’s anything to go by, there are a lot of people that would be willing to pay to not deal with the lightning port comparative slowness. As of this writing, Ken’s set for a $100,100 payday, with the number likely to go even higher.
The good news is, if you wanted an iPhone X with a USB-C port, but don’t have anything in excess of 100 Grand just sitting around, you’re in luck. Because Pillonel detailed the entire project in open source, so anyone with the materials, time, and skill can make one as well.
Granted, this is the sort of thing that I’d imagine people would want out of current iPhone models. Real shame that Apple doesn’t like letting people modify or even repair their devices, to the point that replacing parts with ones that are correct but don’t match the inherent verification values the device knows are correct will simply not work.
Oh well.
Source: PC Mag
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