Someone put USB-C into an iPhone and now we want it more than ever

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RAVPower USB-C To Lightning Cable connecting MacBook and iPhone
RAVPower USB-C To Lightning Cable connecting MacBook and iPhone (Image credit: RAVPower)

What you need to know

  • An engineer has managed to install a working USB-C port into an iPhone X.
  • With USB-C installed, both data and power work as they normally would.

People continue to ask Apple to put USB-C into future iPhones and while iPhone 13 continues to Lightning trend, it's surely, hopefully only a matter of time before iPhone goes USB-C just like iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro. But that's too long to wait for one engineer — so they did the work themselves.

In a new YouTube Short teasing a longer, more in-depth reveal, engineer Ken Pillonel has shared footage of what appears to be an iPhone X with a USB-C port where its Lightning port would normally be. What's more, the video shows the iPhone charging fine and even connecting to a Mac for data transfer — all without issue.

It's all very impressive!

This is it. I've finally built the World's First iPhone with a USB Type-C port. It supports charging and data transfers. The first part was about getting the electronics to work. Then the next step was to reverse-engineer the Apple C94 connector and make my own PCB with a female USB C port. Then the schematics for the project were set and tested and the final was to make it fit inside the iPhone! I'm very happy to show you this mod in the form of a Youtube Short.

Some might argue that this mod makes this device the best iPhone on the planet. While I'm not sure about that, I do know I now want a USB-C iPhone more than ever. As a family full of iPhones alongside an iPad Air and iPad mini, not to mention Nintendo Switch, we have far too many Lightning and USB-C cables vying for plug sockets right now!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.