Engineer Ken Pillonel deserves all the credit for making it possible to attach a functional Lightning port to an Android phone, following up on his remarkable USB-C port installation on an iPhone (the Samsung Galaxy A51).
To put it another way, “I decided I wanted to balance the chaos,” says Pillonel in a YouTube video teaser for the gadget. “It was a difficult task that required some creative thinking. Add some DIY to the mix as well.”
It appears that the Lightning connector is capable of both charging and transferring data, which is a very impressive feat of engineering that must have taken a long time to perfect.
Using Lightning wires as a disguise
Lightning cords are exclusively compatible with Apple products, which presents a problem. In order to fool any connected cable into thinking it belonged to an Apple device, Pillonel had to modify the port in some way.
All the meticulous electronics work, on the other hand, is able to fit inside the original Galaxy A51 shell. On April Fool’s Day, Apple released a teaser video mocking the idea of an Android phone with a Lightning port, which is unlikely to be a popular feature..
Pillonel told Engadget that he didn’t anticipate someone with a rational mind to want to do this to their smartphone. “It was just for fun; I wanted to see if I could.” Stay tuned for the entire video and all of the technical specifics of how this was put up.
Don’t bet against a USB-C iPhone, according to my analysis
An iPhone with a USB-C connection makes far more sense, as Pillonel himself concedes. The iPhone is expected to be the next product to be upgraded to the new standard, after the MacBook and most of the iPads.
As a replacement for microUSB, the Lightning standard has proven to be a success for Apple devices. USB-C has become so commonplace that phones like the iPhone 13 are unable to connect to the majority of accessories on the market.
On the other hand, unless you have a special Apple item that you cannot live without, there is no practical reason to desire a Lightning connector on an Android handset.
The Lightning connection on certain of Apple’s iPhones may be discontinued this year due to regulatory and customer pressure. A port might have been installed on an Android smartphone as well, but we’ll always have this memory of an alternate history that never transpired.