He did it again.
Software engineer Scotty Allen, of iPhone-from-spare-bits fame, shifted his sights to something much smaller: the iPhone 7’s missing headphone jack.
Four months of tinkering, soldering and self-designed circuit boards later and Allen has done what many claimed impossible: added a functioning 3.5mm headphone jack to the iPhone 7 – all documented in a viral 33-minute video.
Watch the video below (VPN off):
Outside China? Watch on YouTube.
Allen says he spent thousands on the project, including paying a factory to do seven 'manufacturing runs' on circuit boards he designed. Was it worth it?
“Yeah, I think so, I had a blast,” says Allen. “It was way, way harder than I thought it would be. But I’m glad I did it.”
Anyone with an iPhone 7 will appreciate what Allen did. Apple's removal of the headphone jack created a vexing situation where iPhone owners need to choose between either listening to music with wired headphones or charging the phone – which are both done via the same port now.
READ MORE: Man Builds iPhone from Scratch in Shenzhen
In a September 2016 interview, Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering justified the move in a Buzzfeed interview, claiming the jack was "fighting for space with camera technologies and processors."
Ever-polite, Allen simply says he has a lot of 'questions.'
"I haven’t seen an explanation of why they needed to remove the headphone jack as far as everything I’ve seen inside the phone," he says. "Yes, it's a stretch. Yes I cut a lot of corners. But I feel like it should have been possible (to keep it)."
With both videos posted on his YouTube channel Strange Parts going viral, Allen says he has bigger plans than modding iPhones in Shenzhen's massive Huaqiang Bei electronics market.
“I am not interested in just doing China or just cellphones – I’m interested in exploring the fringes of technology, travel and adventure.”
You can keep an eye on Allen's latest tech-related exploits on YouTube at Strange Parts.
[Images via Strangeparts.com]
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