World's first iPhone with USB-C sells for whopping US$86,001 on eBay but is unsuitable as a daily driver

To the dismay of many, Apple continues to use its proprietary Lightning port on all iPhones including the latest iPhone 13 models. Recently, a robotics engineering student Kenn Pillonel demonstrated that an iPhone can indeed make use of a USB Type-C port for both charging and data by reverse engineering Apple's Lightning connector. This "world's first USB-C iPhone" has now sold on eBay for a whopping US$86,001.

Pillonel put up his modded iPhone X 64 GB with a USB-C connector on eBay earlier this month as a bid-only item under the account name "geeken" complete with free shipping and a 30-minute tech support call-in. The auction started at US$1 but has since been steadily climbing into thousands of dollars. Now, Pillonel has sold this modded iPhone X to the highest auction valued at US$86,001, which is about 80x its original sale price. 

That being said, Pillonel has put forth several conditions to the bidder. He writes,

• You will not restore, update, or erase this iPhone
• You will not use it as your daily phone
• You will not open it

I guarantee that the phone will work when you receive it but if you don't follow the aforementioned guidelines, you are on your own. So basically, you can do whatever you want with it but don't expect anything from me if you break something. It is just a prototype."

This modded iPhone X is more of a collector's item than a daily driver as it is likely that performing any of the above steps will render the iPhone as a pretty expensive paperweight. 

That being said, Pillonel has opensourced his work on GitHub for other hobbyists and electronics enthusiasts to try out. Pillonel also said that he will continue working on other projects including adding support for USB-C accessories for the iPhone, improving the fast charging, and more.

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