At this time, Apple has its own reasons to not put a USB-C port on its iPhones. But that didn't stop people from trying by customizing their phones.
It all began back in 2021, when an engineer Ken Pillonel replaced his iPhone X’s Lightning connector with a functioning USB-C port. He even created a PCB for it.
Pillonel ensured that his custom PCB can fit into the iPhone X, by brainstorming how to squeeze all of the fabricated custom circuit board into the already-crammed iPhone X body. And lastly, he machined a unique USB-C port on the bottom of the iPhone, in order for it to look like standard.
After all is finished, the modified iPhone X that has the USB-C port worked like intended.
Pillonel documented everything, including all the processes, and even open-sourced the project on GitHub.
Read: Engineering Student Crafted The First Working USB-C IPhone, And Sold It For $80,000
The open-source initiative should help others expand on Pillonel’s efforts, whether by creating more unique USB-C iPhone X versions, or applying the same concept to other iPhones models.
And that is what exactly happened.
Gernot Jöbstl from Austria attempted to make another USB-C iPhone, and even improved Pillonel's design by making the USB-C iPhone waterproofed.
In what Jöbstl calls the “world’s first waterproof USB-C iPhone,” he also improved Pillonel’s design by using a carbon fiber support piece for the USB-C port.
To gain the interest of potential buyers, Jöbstl showed off the creation on YouTube.
Jöbstl then tried to sell the iPhone, but it was a blunder.
Instead of earning more, or at least similar to Pillonel, Jöbstl earned some $80,000 less.
His waterproofed USB-C iPhone was sold on eBay for just $3,000.
While it's for certain that Jöbstl's USB-C iPhone X is superior due to its waterproofed design and with the inclusion of carbon fiber material, he couldn't sell it at a high price because he couldn't maintain the hype Pillonel created.
Pillonel's iPhone X, while inferior, is the world's first-ever iPhone with USB-C.
That title alone was enough to boost the demand and also its price.
People was drooling over it, only because it was the hype.
Jöbstl's iPhone X on the other hand, couldn't get to that height, and couldn't get enough attention from the media either.
While it was pitched as another "world’s first" with it being waterproof, the collector market didn’t buy that idea.
This second USB-C iPhone was sold for its starting price on eBay of just $3,000, with the first and only bidder winning the auction.