Last year, an engineer named Ken Pillonel did what Apple has not yet done, despite pressure from consumers and regulatory authorities alike. He developed the first iPhone with a functional USB-C port, which went on to become one of the highest-priced iPhones on eBay late last year. To “balance things out”, Pillonel has now developed the world’s first Android device with a functional Lightning port. Check out the details below.
World’s First Android Phone with a Lightning Port
In a recent video on his YouTube channel, Pillonel shared a teaser of the world’s first-ever Android smartphone with Apple’s proprietary Lightning port. The engineer says that no one in their right mind would do anything like this to their device as coming from a USB-C port to a Lightning port is definitely a downgrade rather than an upgrade. However, it is meant to be a fun project, says Pillonel.
Now, modding an Android device, a Samsung Galaxy A51 in this case, with a Lightning port was not at all simple. Pillonel told Engadget that the hardest part of the project was to figure out a way to make everything work together.
“The Lightning cables sold by Apple are not ‘dumb’. They will only charge Apple devices,” the engineer noted. “So I had to find a way to trick the cable into thinking it was plugged into an Apple device. And the whole thing needs to fit inside the phone, which is another challenge in itself,” he further added.
The engineer said that he was able to start the project and successfully finish it, thanks to the learning from his USB-C iPhone project. You can check out Pillonel charging the modded Galaxy A51 and performing data transfers with a Lightning cable in the video attached below.
Pillonel stated that modding the Android device with a Lightning port was easier than the first USB-C iPhone for two reasons.”The first is that I’m getting better at it because I’m learning new things every day, so hopefully I can finish these mods faster and faster. The second reason is that the quality of the finished product is nowhere near what it was for the iPhone,” he said.
While the above video only shows the working of the Lightning port on an Android device, Pillonel confirmed that he is working on a full-length video of the project that will be released soon. So, you can keep a tab on his YouTube channel to check out that video when it drops.
