Three weeks ago, robotics student Ken Pironel developed the world's first USB-C iPhone At least, it's possible if you have very deep pockets

With this project, Pillonel replaced the iPhone X's Lightning charger with a fully working USB-C port And now he is giving others the chance to own their own creations The eBay bid price for this device has reached a staggering $90,100 as of this writing

With a few hours still to go before the auction ends, there is no telling how far the bidding price for this item will ultimately go

However, if you are tech-savvy and have a spare iPhone on hand, you can always try making one yourself, as Pironel has also published full instructions on how to make one But be warned, it is certainly not for enthusiastic amateurs

The 14-minute video above outlines the process, which consists mostly of the difficult process of reverse engineering official and knockoff Lightning connectors The GitHub repository has technical information

But even if pioneering research has already been done, the iPhone X needs a steady hand in surgery Not only are the ports physically wider, but the components must be bent round so that the circuitry fits just right That would be impossible without a super-thin gap that stretches all the way between the taptic engine and the battery Here's what a custom circuit board would look like:

Cutting a USB-C shaped hole in the bottom would also be a nightmare, since Apple uses shatter-resistant glass for the back and curved edges Perhaps this means it would be easier to modify if the company switched to angled edges This specific design is only for the iPhone X, but Pillonel encourages anyone who has successfully made it work on different models to add a pull request to GitHub

If you don't want the nerve-wracking (and warranty) of using your own device, the eBay option may be appealing instead However, Pillonel has some conditions: buyers agree that they will not restore, update, or erase the handset; that they will not use it as their main phone; and that they will not open it

The description reads, "I guarantee that the phone will work when you receive it, but if you do not follow the aforementioned [omitted] guidelines, you are on your own" So basically you can do whatever you want with it, but if you break something I don't expect anything It's only a prototype

Despite these restrictions, the current bid has reached $90,100 at the time of writing, with only a few hours remaining Pironel chose it because it was "the cheapest iPhone I could get my hands on at the time and still half decent"

The EU's move to make USB-C a universal standard also made it more likely that Apple would adopt this connector for the iPhone Technically, they could make a USB-C model for Europe and keep Lightning for the rest of the world, but given that recent iPads and MacBooks support USB-C, it seems like a bloody costly addition

Of course, Apple could get around the requirement by releasing an iPhone without the port