Engineering student Ken Pillonel modded an iPhone with a custom USB-C port in October. Now he’s selling the phone on eBay where its current bid is $100,100. The initial listing was for $1. In a little less than five days, 44 people have driven the cost of the custom phone up more than 100,000 percent.Pillonel took on the project for a simple reason. “I just want an iPhone with USB Type-C on it,” he said in a blog post about the project. “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.”Pillonel used an off the shelf iPhone X for the project and it wasn’t easy. He had to reverse engineer Apple’s proprietary C94 connector circuit board to make the phone work. It took days and good soldering skills to finish the project but when it was done he had an iPhone that could charge and transfer data via a USB-C.No one likes Apple’s proprietary Lighting charging cable. USB-C is becoming the standard for charging devices but Apple refuses to change. We all have a drawer in our homes filled with useless cables we feel we may one day need. Apple contributes to the growing tangle of cables by forcing everyone to buy its charger, but that may be changing.In September, the European Union voted to force manufacturers to adopt a universal charger. Apple pushed back against the vote saying the regulation would stifle innovation, but it’s recent iPad models charge via USB-C instead of Lightning and Apple watchers have said they think the phones will follow suit.Hopefully we won’t have to wait long for USB-C iPhones that don’t cost $100,000. “The funds will go towards special equipment to tackle more ambitious projects,” Pillonel said in a video announcing the auction.
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