Despite years of speculation, Apple has yet to release a USB-C iPhone, but that hasn’t prevented a robotics engineering student from designing one anyhow. A functioning USB-C connector has been installed inside an iPhone X by Ken Pillonel, allowing the phone to be charged and data transferred through USB-C instead of Lightning.
It was discovered by Apple Insider that Pillonel has been working on the project in his spare time for months, experimenting with numerous USB-C and Lightning cords to achieve his end aim of building a USB-C iPhone. When Pillonel first came up with the idea in May, he only had a very basic prototype. It was necessary to remove all the cables from the proof of concept before it could be squeezed inside an iPhone.
Using reverse engineering, Pillonel created a flexible PCB board that fits inside an iPhone. Pillonel demonstrated how the iPhone X with USB-C charges and transfers data in a last teaser movie released this week. Currently, a film detailing Pillonel’s successful reverse engineering of the C94 connector and integration of his custom PCB inside the phone is being edited.
Earlier this month, the European Commission revealed proposals to require smartphone and other electronic device manufacturers to have a single USB-C charging connector. Apple could be compelled to release a USB-C iPhone or a wireless charging-only iPhone in the next few years.
It’s unclear if Pillonel intends to make the details of his flexible PCB design available to others so they can duplicate it. Now he’s in his final year of robotics studies at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In the past, he’s applied his knowledge to produce a 3D-printed mod for Samsung’s Galaxy Fold vehicle mount that lets users use the wireless car charger from Xiaomi Mi.
