Want an Android Phone With Apple's Lightning Port? This Student Made One
The robotics student who built a modified iPhone with a USB-C port last year has returned with an Android phone outfitted with Apple's Lightning port.
In a Friday YouTube clip, graduate student Ken Pillonel showed off a Samsung Galaxy A51 that's had its USB-C port replaced with a working Lightning port. "And data is also supported,” according to Pillonel, who demoed the port transferring files from a connected PC.
Pillonel, who is studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, decided to create the Lighting port-Android phone as a “tongue-in-cheek” project for fun. “After building the first USB-C iPhone, I decided to balance things out,” Pillonel said in the video.
He also expects his project to face some hate, probably because there’s no real demand for adding Apple’s Lightning port to Android smartphones. Instead, there’s been a serious push in Europe to force all smartphone makers, including Apple, to adopt the USB-C port as a common charging method, citing the need to cut down on electronic waste.
As such, Pillonel urges viewers not to "take it too seriously. I also waited to post this on April 1st. So if you see angry comments, let them know they are the April Fool ;)"
Pillonel plans on uploading another video documenting the steps he took to modify the Samsung Galaxy A51 with the Lightning port. However, the video he uploaded on Friday suggests it was a laborious process that involved using a 3D printer and modifying the Android phone’s internal components using various tools and a microscope.
“It was a complex modification that required some out-of-the-box thinking,” he added. As for Pillonel’s iPhone X with a USB-C port, he auctioned it off last year for a whopping $86,001 to help him buy additional
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