The USB-C Holiday Spec-tacular

27:13USB-C is enough. I was going to say, I can't believe, Neil, I just let you get that far into that sentence. No, I hissed at her. I was going as fast as I could to get there before the hissing. No, but yeah, I think you're right. It's like, right. The really fast data transfer like lives in the world of pci thunderbolt and pci have a connection there that's important everything else is kind of on usb and then the thing that is not is the two display connectors and even that is getting into a realm of silliness right where it's like how many 8k displays can apple plug into one mac mini is like that's how we're measuring how how important those are and maybe some things over time like additional hdr bandwidth or more colors or whatever is going it be needed there will come and I'm sure it'll be great.

27:57But most everything now can run on USB-C. And what you see is, yep, sometimes you sit in a conference room and there's just a bundle of display adapters sitting on the table, but they all have USB connectors on the end. That to me just feels like a kind of victory. I'm not sure it's the right one. We defeated complexity with additional complexity, but at least all the connectors are the same. Yeah, but it's smaller complexity, I guess, which is something that's a win. Yeah. I mean, part of me feels like I think I'm torn between these two ideas that this transition is, was always going to take a long time because it essentially involves replacing every gadget on earth at some point.

28:34And that's a lot of work and you can fix your own gadget. And like, I've seen this even with the iPhone 15, right? Getting the iPhone 15. Fantastic. Love being able to use USB-C. My wife and I can now charge our phones with the same thing. She has a pixel. I have an iPhone. It's great. Huge victories for everybody. I have a new cable that I had to get for my car. My phone now doesn't plug into certain things that used to plug into. I have a bunch of accessories that are now dead, right? Like that transition is gonna take a long time and I get that. But also we've been at this for a decade now and it doesn't feel like we're close.

29:07And so I can't decide if we're running too slowly or if I'm being too ambitious here. Let's wrap this up by talking about the big news of the year for USB-C. Apple switched the iPhone to USB-C. This is the big thing in a normal universe. When that happened, we'd run a headline like USB-C arrives or it's finally here. The transitions are and that is just no one's doing that because of the iPhone. That's what I mean. Instead, it's yeah. To your point, it's a combo of finally. And oh, boy, this is going to take a long time. Yeah. And I feel that way. To be clear, I feel that way about USB-A, too.

29:41But because there isn't some giant company that is switching away from USB-A to mark a moment, it's hard to talk about in the same way. But it is true that USB-A is, I believe, in world history, the most popular power port of all time. Like, it is the most popular plug outlet in world history. I believe it. It's just everywhere. It is a standard. You can be anywhere in the world and you see a USB-A port and you're like, I'm going to plug these god-awful cheap LED strip lights into them. and they're going to light up. Well, first you're going to have to flip it over because you plugged it in wrong.

30:14But then the second time it'll work. That's kind of amazing. No other plug outlet has ever, I'm going to charge my phone. I found a USB port. God, I hope it isn't loaded with malware. I'm going to carry one of those little adapters that cuts everything with the power. That's incredible. But that is also, you got to take all of those out. We're renovating our house. I'm buying plug outlets and I'm buying plug outlets with USB-C and one USB-A in the middle because there's enough stuff that I know I'm going to want to plug into that plug out. That's nuts. And now I've just installed another USB outlet into the wall of this house.

30:48It's going to be there for 20 years. Right. You're both helping and hurting all at the same time. You're persisting. And it's the same with lightning. Like Apple, there's a billion plus iOS devices out there with lightning ports on them. Apple's still selling some phones with lightning ports. Apple still sells some iPads with lightning ports on them. They're going to keep selling them for a long time. EU be damned. Merry Christmas to the European Commission, says Tim Cook. Happy holidays, you bastards. And he ships his billionth iPad. Like that stuff isn't going anywhere. And it kind of means the core dream of USPC.

31:21Maybe no connector will ever achieve it, right? Because there's always going to be standard sort of waxing and waning. And as everything gets bigger and everything becomes a computer, the installed bases just get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And people are cheap. I mean, how long has the PS2 port persisted? I think you could probably buy something with a PS2 port right now. And you shouldn't be able to do that. That's just stupid. It's like it's older than half of the people that we work with. That said, this is true. You can get all the way here. I've seen people assemble just the most bananas USB-C dongle chains.

31:56Yeah. You can get a PS2 to USB-A to USB-C connector and use them on a lot of computers. People still use Apple extended keyboard twos. They're very popular, big clicky keys. Apple desktop bus to USB-A to USB-C totally works. It's kind of amazing, you know, when software backwards compatibility is so hard, yet with USB-C in hardware, people almost take it for granted, which is pretty incredible. Yeah, I mean, kudos to like the people who did this for making it a continuing standard. But I think now we're at a point where we've agreed that this is the standard and it's gonna keep moving so fast that I wonder if we're going to end up sort of accidentally at another unrecognizable standard before too long.

32:37And if maybe we're even there already, like USB-C is a collection of different things that all kind of look the same already. And the EU is out here regulating like what the port has to look like. And I think that's good. But I also wonder if instead of that thing you're describing where we've kind of had really good connectivity over the years between the ideas of USB, if instead we're going to have a bunch of things that look the same and are very different. And that's just going to be where it lands. I have no idea. I mean, that's what we're doing with HDMI right now and a lot of other ports is there's like that conflict and nobody wants to properly label things.

33:13And if they just properly labeled things and made the labels easy to understand, this would all be solved. But. Oh, yeah. If you are a member of the United States Congress listening to this, the Vergecast holiday spectacular about at USBC. Welcome. I think there's at least 40 or 50 senators listening to this right now. No question. At least half the Senate is listening to this. Look, first of all, if you're listening to this and you're in Congress, you are the most effective politicians countries. I want you to feel great about it. You are here on the ground with the people. You're sharing the holiday spirit with them.

33:47And you are talking about real problems in America. Second, you have an opportunity to outdo the Europeans if you just pass some labeling standards. Everything in tech right now is being regulated by the Europeans. And you can do it. You can take weird St. Nicholas from France and turn him into Santa Claus in the greatest American Christmas spirit. You can do it. And you can say, look, you're focused on USBC. Here in America, we label our wires. And you can just take Christmas from them. And I want you to do it. Please. Because that is actually what we just put labels on the plugs that say how fast they can charge and how much data they can support.

34:25And then everyone will be happy. We'll lead better lives in America. You have to also make it a spec that people care about. Like this is the learning experience over Christmas is like sit down and really learn about the charging requirements of all of your individual devices. Take some time. Instead of reading the night before Christmas, read some instruction manuals to your computers. Yeah. Because like I think about what happened to TVs, right? Like everybody got very aware of what 720p and 1080p and 4K and 8K were. And those things get better because people start to care about it and they'll buy the better ones.

34:58And now I've become like a zealot for telling people to buy expensive cables, which is the opposite of what I used to say. I used to tell people just like buy the Amazon Basics, the cheapest thing you can find for whatever cable you need. It'll probably work. Now I'm like if you want to live the as few cables as possible lifestyle, you have to buy good ones. And you have to buy ones that are more than most of your devices need in order for it to work for most of your devices. And people just don't know because they've never had to. And realistically, they shouldn't. Like, this should be a solid problem.

35:27But this has to be a thing people care about. Like, I'm the problem because I didn't make sure that my monitor was the right connectivity for what I wanted. And if we don't start to demand that, it won't get better. That's wild, right? Because HDMI, which carries much more data on the regular, needs to be more reliable in order to support all the high-end video standards. It is kind of like just buy whatever cable. Right. But it's not truly. But it's close enough. Like for most cases. If you're out there buying the monster cables, like you're getting taken for a ride. If you buy a high quality HDMI cable, it's going to be fine.

35:57Yeah. Right. In a way that if you don't buy a high quality USB-C cable. You're boned. You're not guaranteed to get life out of it through as like technology progresses. And you'll notice the difference. Like I work in my basement and my bedroom is two floors away upstairs. All of my cables are right next to me. The thing I use to charge my phone all the way upstairs is a piece of crap USB-C cable that takes 100 ,000 years to charge my phone. And I have to change it. And I have not because I keep forgetting when I'm upstairs and it's too much work to come all the way downstairs. But it's like it's a real thing.

36:31And you will notice the difference between a really good cable and a really crappy cable in a way that I think with HDMI, like most people are not going to notice the difference. Yeah, most people don't even know like HDMI 2.0 and 2.1. And so they're like, that's fine. Yeah. And if you're like, let's spend$65 on this cable, like someone will come out and just start screaming at you. But you know if your milk foamer is not charging. It's exactly right. Eli can't make coffee if his milk foamer is not charging. And that's very important. Okay, here's my last piece on this. And then we should go to the game show.

37:02This was the year that Apple did the big transition to USB-C. The iPhone has it now. The EU has mandated it. This is all big news. I feel like that stuff in the weeds of it is less important than how does it feel to use technology that all has this port. So that's what we spend our time on. But it is the thing that happened. Does that feel like it was a success? Does it feel like it will be an enduring success? Or are we just waiting for USB-C, USB-C-D to come along? USB-F. 6G will change everything. That's what I'm saying. Will 6G change everything? Or did we get there with this big European regulation and finally the switch on the iPhone?

37:44Alex, what do you think? It'll change nothing. You think it'll change nothing? I don't think anything's going to change, really. I think we're going to continue this slow roll. I'm a little more hopeful than that. I think the iPhone changing is a big deal. I think it would have been a bigger deal if the iPhone had switched 10 years ago. I think there's a really interesting parallel universe if instead of launching USB-C on a MacBook, it had launched it on an iPhone. And how the technology world would look different now all these years after that, I think it would look very different and much better.

38:15I've talked to a lot of people in the last, say, six months who are very excited about this and what it'll mean for the kinds of accessories you can buy, knowing that they're going to last more than the life of your phone and the kinds of things that you can put into cars and put into fixtures in your house and like with confidence that this port is going to be around in some way for the next let's say 10 years there's stuff you can do that is cool and different and exciting for everybody i think if we are still in this place where i can plug a thing into my devices and i have no idea what's going to happen in another 12 months, I'm going to be a lot less optimistic.

38:52Join me. Yeah. Either we're going to spend 2024 like weeding out the crappy stuff on Amazon, starting to figure this stuff out. The next rev of a lot of these gadgets will make more affordances for that stuff and it'll be great. Or we're just going to be overrun by crappy USB-A to USB-C gadgets. And I'm going to be on Alex's side saying, actually, nothing has gotten better. Yeah. Yeah. I'm somewhere in the middle. And here's what I'll throw out there to just complexify this whole situation. My family has a wide variety of iPhones in it. And some of us have a USB-C iPhones. Some of us have Lightning iPhones.

39:25And the most popular person on my family on our recent family trip was my nephew who had a MagSafe battery pack that worked with everyone's phones. That's so real. Yeah. And it was like, oh, there's another thing going on here that is interesting, right? There's another out for Apple. You know, MagSafe and Qi charging Qi2 and MagSafe are really tightly aligned. That's becoming its own little standard right next to USB-C. I think that's going to make the ecosystems a little more interesting and a little more compatible, but we'll see. Like, that's the only thing I'll throw in the mix. I'm also optimistic that at least one turn of it is done and that USB-C seems future-proofed in a way.

40:06Like, it's the thing. It can support everything from a laptop to whatever to change the world's laptops to the next power standard. You need a good reason. Like, this is a tiny little connector, and you get 100 watts out of it, 240 watts out of it. That's most laptops. You don't need anything. Like, the design constraint it imposes is not an inch tall Ethernet. connector. Like you can get what you want out of it. So that's my hope is that it has done what it needs to do for now. And the next turn looks like magnetic charging or whatever. And that is going to make this transition hopefully a little easier because there's something compatible with both along the way.

40:42And then if a year or two from now, most things will just have the USVC and people will just understand it. And then after that, we get to the thing. What was the thing where it was like a lamp that sits in the corner of your room and like beams power at you? Yeah, it's the they're at CES every year and every year they're like, we could do it. And And every year it's like, well, then do it. That's 8G, baby. One year, one of those companies promised that they had a Foreman grill that was wirelessly powered. And I was like, I don't believe you. And I went and I shot a video on a flip cam of them cooking a burger.

41:10And it was like the thing was just sitting on a giant plate that was, you know, like wireless. I was like, this isn't really. I understand that there's no wire here, sir. But this is it. We haven't gotten very far. All right. Speaking of the complexity of USPC, we got to take a break. We're going to come back with the USPC Price is Right and probably some sort of lawsuit from Price is Right people. We'll be right back.

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44:18Here it comes from the Vox Media Podcast Studios in New York, New York. It's the USBC Price is Right. Nilay Patel, come on down. We're going to get sued. I'm so worried about it. Alex Kranz, come on down. I can't afford to be sued right now. And David Pierce, come on down. I always thought I would do a cool dance if I was on the Price is Right. That was like I had a whole choreography planned. There was a spin move. And here's your host, Liam James. Okay, welcome to the USBC Price is Right. I'm VergeCast producer Liam James. We have a great game for you today, which will consist of four rounds, all themed around the latest industry standard connector for all your favorite gadgets.

45:00Well, Neelai, David, Alex, you should all know that each of you will be playing today for a VergeCast listener that we randomly pulled out of a hat. Let's hear who Neelai is playing for. this is james alexander and my favorite usbc gadget has to be the very first one i ever got a nexus 6p yeah greatest phone google ever made thank you all right james i'm in it yeah great pick james all right let's hear who david's playing for today hey verge cast team my name is kabir ali and my favorite usbc gadget is my ceramic burr grinder for coffee beans that i got on Amazon. Awesome gadget. Thanks so much, guys.

45:41Hope to win the competition. My fussy coffee people. Let's go, Kabir. I'm in. Let's go. David, you're my sworn enemy now, and Kabir, I don't know you, but you're dead to me. We got to go back and ask Kabir if his thing is actually USB-A and doesn't have the resistors and can only charge from an A to C cable. Yeah, we'll put that in the follow-up for the next show. But for now, let's hear who Alex is playing for. Hi, my name is Terry, and my favorite USB-C gadget is my Ventrue and Ford Pro. It's a three-channel 4K Wi-Fi dash cam. I put it into my car. I have a Kia Soul. It's pretty awesome. Also, I would like Alex to represent me.

46:20Wow. Dude found his people. He's like, I've got a fussy dash cam, Alex. But he also has a Kia, so his insurance rate is more than his car. Okay, well, whoever wins, your listener will be sent an awesome, cool Verge swag basket filled with all kinds of goodies. All right, is everybody ready? Let's go. We're ready. All right. The first round is guess the price. Guess the price of each gadget. The closest guess without going over five wins. Get within$5, get a bonus of five points. Let's get started with the first gadget up for bid today. it's a 1080p endoscopic camera for your android or ios device featuring a 2.1 megapixel camera six adjustable leds this usb enabled tool is great for inspecting hard to reach places like car repairs sewer maintenance dryer vent inspection and more made by pancelin can i ask a follow-up question can we spelling be this where can i ask for like you know language of origin.

47:24I just want to know how many megapixels was it? Two. Two megapixels. Okay, that changes everything. The 1080p. Okay, whoever gets the closest to the retail price without going over gets the most points. All right, Alex Kranz. Ooh, what do I want to do? 248. Alex Kranz with$2.48. Wait, 248, not 248. Wow. Alex Kranz with an overbid. I believe it in me. Look, it's long. It's one long wire. Look, it's at least three cents per megapixel. $248. $248. All right. Mr. Pierce. Okay. Do we have the thing where I can look back at the crowd and ask them to guess for me? $59.99. All right, David Pierce,$59.99.

48:16And the thing on Amazon says it's usually$74.99, but it's actually$59.99. That's what I think. And Mr. Patel. Oh, this is very complicated now because I think Alex is way too high and I think David's way too low. $117. Yeah, that's a good number. Nilay Patel,$117. Actual retail price is$29.90. Let's go. I should have gone with it. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I could have won. Sorry, Terry. Look, my father was an emergency room doctor. Do not do that with things that cost$29.90. Check for dryer lint? No. My dryer vents are going to be so clean. You guys don't even know. Okay, that means all three of you actually bid over the retail price.

49:10So no points are awarded for this gadget. But let's move on to our next USB-C gadget. It's Rechargeable Heated Socks by Westin. These stockings will keep your feet warm all day with the power of two small batteries you tuck into a pocket sewn into the socks, which are rechargeable by the included USB-C cable. Rechargeable socks by Westin. All right. Contestants, currently on Westin's website, these socks are actually 50 % off. But at what price? But what is the discount price or what is the regular price? What is the discounted price? That's harder. I feel like this tracks with what David is saying is that these are probably never sold at the real price.

49:52Correct. Like you have to psychologically manipulate people to believing they're getting a deal in order to sell battery socks. Normally, these are$1 ,000. And today, they're$6. All right. Contestants, are you ready? Ready. Okay. This time, let's go with David Pierce to begin with. It's one pair of socks, yes? One pair of socks. $22.49. All right. David Pierce with$22.49. Mr. Patel. I've learned my lesson. $11 flat. $11 flat from Mr. Patel and Ms. Kranz. Oh, see, because it's socks. Socks are sneakily expensive sometimes. So I'm going to go with$37.96. You think the socks cost more than the camera?

50:38Yes. Actual retail price is$79.95. Oh, my God. Yes. Kranz, our winner. That's the half off price? That is the half off price. I told you, socks are pricey. I'm just going to say this out loud. What I've learned from two rounds of USBC prices, right, is people respect some parts of their body much more than other parts of their body. You can get the USBA version of these socks for$199. Oh my God. I'm kidding. I totally made that up. Okay, let's get to our final gadget for Guess the Price. It's the FLIR One Pro Thermal Imaging Camera for Android phones. This infrared camera mobile accessory has an adjustable USB-C connector and lets you find hidden electrical problems, energy loss, water damage, and other heat-related issues with its thermal imaging with the help of the FLIR One app.

51:32Buy FLIR. That's so jaunty. All right, contestants, right now on Amazon, you can get this gadget for what price? I reviewed the Lightning version of this in like 2017, and I don't think that's going to help me at all. You got to factor out the MFI tax. Yeah, I got to factor that and also the many years since I last reviewed this. Yeah, inflation. What does Bidenomics say this is worth now? $4 ,000. Okay, first we have Alex Kranz. Oh, I hate it.

52:09$268. $2.42. All right. $268.42 from Alex Kranz. I feel like that's a good number. Nilay Patel, what is your guess? $207. $207. $207.86. $207.86. We have a last minute correction. David Pierce, what is your guess? $1. $1. Price is right, baby. Let's go. David's taking the entire middle range there. All right. Actual retail price is$420.50. Oh, my God. Why didn't anyone guess$420? Oh, I'm sorry. But wait, I still win, right? You do. You super won. Yes. Wow. You absolutely won. In fact, let's take a look at our scoreboard as it stands now. Rounding out the back is Nilay Patel with zero. I'm sorry, James.

53:09I'll send you a Nexus 5, man, no matter what happens. Joining him is David Pierce with Zero. Come here, I'm so sorry. Alex Kranz, our fearless leader, at 10. A commanding lead. All for you, Terry. It's all for you. I can't send you a Nexus 5 because it's a mini USB. I'll figure it out. Get an adapter. Dongle it. All right, contestants. The next game we have for you is called the Match Game. Match the gadget to its max wattage over USB-C. Two points per correct match. Here, we have a list of 10 USB-C gadgets and 10 of max power delivery stats in watts. As you all may know, power delivery is a specification on USB-C that tells us how much power the gadget is allowed to receive for charging.

53:56Use your expert gadget knowledge to match each USB-C PD number with the appropriate tech. Can I just say this is proof positive that USB-C PD is bananas? I'm just going to read you the numbers that are available. 100 watts, 45 watts, 140 watts, 3 watts, 80 watts, 18 watts, 30 watts, 96 watts, 27 watts, and 45 watts. Many of these numbers are virtually the same. Universal standards, baby. Let's tell the audience what the devices are. First, we have the Nintendo Switch from 2019. We have the iPhone 15 Pro. We have the 16-inch MacBook Pro M3. We also have the Steam Deck OLED model. We have the DeWalt DCB094 USB charging kit.

54:48We have the PS5 DualSense controller. We have the Samsung Galaxy S23. The OnePlus 11 5G. We have a 14-inch MacBook Pro, the M1 model. And finally, the Pixel 8 Pro. Everyone should have a worksheet we provided for them with all this information. Please match the gadget with the appropriate power wattage. You may start now. Again, I'm just going to point out it's 10 different devices, many of which are exactly the same category in 10 different numbers. Listen, Neil, I stopped stalling. All right, I'm going. Oh, I did this one wrong. Did you guys do the thing that I did where you get almost to the end and you realize the two highest ones you haven't done yet and all that's left are ones that don't need that much power?

55:30Yeah. Yes. Yes. And I was like, C, C, C, C, 45. I goofed. No, I think I nailed this. Actually, you know what? I nailed this. Confidence. All right, contestants, let's see how everybody did. We're going to take these one at a time, starting with the Nintendo Switch at 18 watts. Ooh, that's a big no. Anybody get that one? Nope. Next, we've got the iPhone 15 Pro at 27 watts. Oh, I was close on that one. Did you guess 30? I guessed 30. I guessed 30. You know what's horrible about this is that we keep going the more it's guaranteed that I'm wrong. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Next, we have the 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 model at 140 watts.

56:19Dang it. Hell yeah. You should have all gotten that one. I knew that was a thirsty bee. No. I knew it was thirsty, but I thought something else was thirstier. All right. Next, we have the Steam Deck OLED model at 45 watts. Yes. That's low. That feels low to me. I got that one. It does feel low. That means I know nothing. I was surprised by this as well. I put a little line in. All right. Next item on the list is the DeWalt DCB094 USB charging kit at 100 watts. Wow. Yeah. I had it in the MacBook Pro, the 16-inch. I switched them. I got to say, I got that one wrong, and everything else waterfalled to wrongness after that.

56:56There was just a cascade of inaccurate answers after I got that one wrong. All right, well, we'll rip the Band-Aid off gently here. It's the PS5 DualSense controller at 3 watts. Yes! Let's go. Samsung Galaxy S23 at 45 watts. Yeah! OnePlus 11 5G at 80 watts. Yeah! That's the only thing I know about OnePlus is that it'll just suck down power. That's what they do, baby. I put 100 because for the same reason. I was like, OnePlus, just get after it. Light that battery on fire. Hey, put that shit on the hot plate. Let's go. All right. The 14-inch MacBook Pro M1 model at 96 watts. Oh. Finally, we have the Pixel 8 Pro at 30 watts.

57:43Hey. Bang. I got two. I told you I'd take this home. All right, contestants. Let's find out how you did. A reminder that each one that you got correct here counts for two points. A reminder that this is the winning worksheet. And if I had gotten the DeWalt thing correct. All right, Mr. Hotshot, tell us how many you got right. That's five. Got five correct guesses. Wow. David Pierce, how many correct guesses do you have on your worksheet? I got a whopping two right. Two correct from David Pierce. I have probably five other ones that are one rung away. Like, should I have put 100 when I put 96? Yes, I should have.

58:22Should I have put 80 when I put 96? Yes, I should have. Tough beat for David. Kabir, I'm sorry. Four points for me. All right, Alex Kranz, how many correct guesses do you have? Well, I can't make fun of David because it's the exact same. Two. I also got two right. But I got two right in the last round, so I'm winning. Did you both try to do the highest and lowest first? Like, I knew that PS5 was the lowest. Yes. And then I was just trying to figure out where the highest was, and I knew it was the MacBook. I did highest first, and then I started to scramble because I realized I'd done it all wrong, but it was too late.

58:54So I was like, oh, PS, PS, I know that one's going to be low, and that's the one I got right. I very confidently, the first line I drew was iPhone 15 Pro to 30 watts, because I was sure that was like, no question that was correct. Three watts off. And then, no, I'll tell you what threw me while I'm being angry about this, is that the Nintendo Switch is famously the hardest gadget on Earth to buy cables for. So I looked at this and I was like, what's the most random number on here? Because I bet that's it. And I landed on 27 for the Switch. And I was so sure that was right because I was like, no other cable except the one dumb one that Nintendo will sell you will work.

59:31So it has to be a random one. And I was wrong and I'm furious. I just randomly chose 96 and I was crock. You think the Switch takes 96 watts of power? The Switch has the processing horsepower of a phone from 2009. I was like, maybe it just gets thirsty. Well, I will just say you guys are doing much better than you did last year on the Bluetooth Jeopardy game. So fair enough. Let's review the points from that round. Neelai got 10 points for his five correct guesses. Yeah. Worse to first. David Pierce and Alex Kranz each got four points for their two correct guesses, bringing our grand totals to Neelai at 10, David at four and Alex at 14.

1:00:14Yeah. Santa's back. I got you, Terry. All right. Now we go into round three. Round three is Mad Libs. We have given you a sentence with a bunch of terms missing, but all the terms are jumbled. The sentence comes from a recent Android Authority article spelling out just how complicated USBC has gotten. Fill in the gaps in the sentence with the provided terms. We'll give you three points each per correct placement. And the sentence is... Blank is based on blank and aligned with the blank specification, thereby bundling in blank tunneling support for two blank or a single blank display output and blank capabilities on blank devices.

1:00:58Do we have four hours to complete this? And the terms we have for the sentence are DisplayPort 2.0, 4K, PCI Express, Hub, Thunderbolt 4, USB 4, Thunderbolt 3, and 8K. All right, everyone. Please use your worksheet to fill out the sentence. I got it. Can I ask for definitions on several of these words? Also, is PCI Express a trick because no one has used that in 25 years? Are there more words than there are slots? No. Nailed it. By the way, that's how I took the LSAT, in case you're wondering. I finished the worksheet and just stood up and said, nailed it, after every section. I'm having deep regrets already, but I'm locked in.

1:01:43I hit the buzzer. Kranz, you ready? Well, I guess I'm going to have to be. I've worked something somewhere. I knew the people who took the LSAT that way, too. All right. Let's hear your sentences, contestants, starting with Alex Kranz. That's rude. That's very rude. Thunderbolt 4 is based on Thunderbolt 3 and aligned with the PCI Express specification, thereby bundling in... This is where it goes really bad. USB 4 tunneling... No, that's just wrong. support for up to two hub or a single DisplayPort 2.0 display output and 4K capabilities on 8K devices. You really just ran out of words there. That's how that feels.

1:02:38Okay, let's go with David Pierce next. Thunderbolt 4 is based on USB 4 and aligned with the Thunderbolt 3 specification, thereby bundling in PCI Express tunneling support for up to 2.4K or a single 8K display output and hub capabilities on DisplayPort 2.0 devices. Oh, that makes sense. I'm not sure that it does. You guys do not spend nearly enough time on the DisplayPort Wikipedia page. Sean Hollister is very upset somewhere right now. All right, Nilay Patel, tell us your sentence. USB 4.0 is based on PCI Express in line with a Thunderbolt 4 specification, thereby bundling in Thunderbolt 3 tunneling support for up to two 4K displays or single 8K display output and DisplayPort 2.0 capabilities on hub devices.

1:03:23All right. I believe Neelai is going to be our winning contestant here, but let me read this sentence for you. It's actually USB-C 4 is based on Thunderbolt 3 and aligned with the Thunderbolt 4 specification. What? That doesn't make any sense. I got that right. No, I refuse. news thereby bundling in display port 2.0 tunneling support for up to 2 4k or 1 8k display output and pci express capabilities over hub devices i just got two words in the and they are the same word thunderbolt and pci express are the same the same thing yeah so why didn't you put them in the right places patel homonyms the power of suggestion no i maintain the first clause of this sentence objectively makes no sense and should not be allowed.

1:04:12I refuse. Just like to remind you, this sentence came from an Android Authority article spelling out just how complicated USBC has gotten. I'd like to have a word with Android Authority. Could we bring them on the show? Yes. I'd like to question your authority, good sir. All right. So let's review that round of Mad Libs to see how we did. Eli Patel got five correct guesses for a total of 15. David Pierce got two correct guesses for a total of six points. Don't say it like that. And Alex Kranz only got one correct. I got one. For a total of three points. Let's go back to the big board to see our totals.

1:04:50We've got Nilay Patel at 25 now taking the lead. Yes. David Pierce at 10 and Alex Kranz at 17. And it would be more if it wasn't for the corrupt Android authority whose administration I will bring down. I got to crush Nilay in the last round. My sets are higher, Kranz. I think for an extra 10 points, can Neil, I'd be forced to explain this in English? Yes, now that I have the correct one. So the way that I always think about this, just very quickly, and I know I'm going to gloss over the details. But the way I always think about this is that Thunderbolt and PCI Express are the same thing. And PCI is what's in your computer, and Thunderbolt is that exact same connectivity over a wire.

1:05:32That means Thunderbolt has lots of bandwidth. It's really fast. You can do expansion with it, which is how you get PCI expansion chassis over Thunderbolt. This all makes sense. So all this is saying is over time, USB 4 and Thunderbolt, as USB gets faster and faster and faster, it starts to inherit the capabilities of Thunderbolt because Apple and Intel are all mixed up in the standard here. They're starting to align the things so that you can do more Thunderbolt things on USB as it gets faster. So here, USB 3.0 is inheriting a bunch of Thunderbolt 3 capabilities in alignment with Thunderbolt 4, which is itself getting faster.

1:06:06And that means USB 4.0 can now do Thunderbolt 3.0 things like DisplayPort 2.0 for two 4K or one 8K device and PCI expansion on hubs. I also appreciate that Nilay said it in more words than Android Authority. So good job, Android Authority. Significantly more. All right, let's go to that final round, everyone, which is the showcase. Guess the price of the combined showcase without going over. The closest guess wins 20 points. Guess within$250, we'll give you an extra five points. I hate this. Can we go back to Mad Libs? Guess within$100, get an extra 10 points. Guess within$50, and we'll give you a whopping 50 bonus points.

1:06:49All right, Kabir, this is our moment. Let's go. let's see what we have in this showcase in this package experience usbc in all of its many uses with this all-inclusive podcasting kit oh my god this cutting edge package would in theory include a 16 inch 2023 macbook pro with an m3 pro chip 12 core cpu 18 core gpu 16 core neural engine of course three thunderbolt 4 ports and 140 watt usbc power adapter along with that we have the Sony W8-1000XM5 wireless headphones, chargeable by USB-C. And then, Rode's NT1 5th generation studio condenser microphone, which allows connection with both XLR and USB-C.

1:07:34Anker's 563 10-in-1 USB-C docking station. LG's 28-inch 16x18 dual-up monitor with USB-C. And to top it all off, a waterless portable essential oil diffuser. rechargeable by USBC by Lintro. So it's a wellness podcast. I just want to be clear. All right, contestants, please guess the price of this deluxe podcasting kit. We're going to start with our leader, Nilay Patel. Okay,$4 ,179.99. All right. We've got Nilay at$4 ,179.99. Next on the scoreboard, we have Alex Kranz. $4 ,856. We don't know how much that microphone costs at all. Alex Kranz is going with$4 ,856. And David Pierce, what is your guess?

1:08:30One dollar. Classic prices, right? I wrote down an actual number that I will tell you when I find out whether I won or not. All right, we'll get there in a moment. The actual retail price of this package is$3 ,847.96. Come here, we did it! But I'm closer. You went over, it doesn't matter. Is that how that works? Because this is Price is Right rules, if you've gone over, you lose. Which means... The comeback of the century. No one knows how much that microphone costs. Yeah, can we get individual prices? All right, let's break that down in more detail. The 16-inch 2023 MacBook Pro with M3 chip was$2 ,499.

1:09:21Got that exactly right. The Sony headphones were$329.99. I was$20 off on that. I was so close. I was a little high there. The Rode NT1 condenser microphone was$249. Oh, I was just a little high, actually. I was only 50 bucks high. I was 100 bucks low. The Anker 563 docking station was$129.99. That's a good deal. I'm way off on that one. Andrew, you put together a nice little package here. Yeah. It's very affordable. I put it at$50. The LG Dual Up monitor with USB-C was$599.99. I put$650. I was pretty close. Why is my LG monitor half that size and twice that price? You love pixel density. The thing you don't know about the dual up is that it only has 10 pixels.

1:10:09And finally, the Lintro 2023 Waterless Portable Essential Oil Diffuser from Amazon at$39.99. No, it nailed that one. Yeah, I know my Amazon garbage. Your company's called Lintro and you put the year in the product description. You're not going over 50. This is much more affordable than I thought. I was high on the headphones, the microphone in the docking station, and that allowed David to win. I had that MacBook at three grand, not twenty five hundred. And I blame Apple for not making any sense with what it sells you. And I was in aggregate basically dead on with the rest of it. So I ended up the number I wrote down was forty three ninety five sixty one.

1:10:47And if you take away that five hundred bucks, I was like I was right there. So I'm feeling good about this. But also I won anyway. So learn how to play the game, Patel. David is fired. And what you've won is being alone for the holidays. That's correct. David got 20 points from this round. Our other two contestants with zero. That makes David our winner today with 30 points. Neelai just behind him at 25. And finally, Alex Kranz with 17 points. Rigged by the corrupt Android authority. So sad. Congratulations to our winner, who David was playing for, Kabir. And let's tell Kabir what he's won. In our Verge swag gift bag, we've got a Vergecast T-shirt from the popular What's a Photo series.

1:11:31We've got this awesome pair of Vergecast sweatpants, a Verge mug, a Verge hat, and of course, a Verge fanny pack. Thank you to everyone for playing and thank you all for listening. Please get your pets paid and neutered to help control the pet population. We'll be right back after this break with more of the USBC Holiday Spectacular.

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1:14:41All right, we're back. I'm going to tell you right now, I feel like USBC price is rigged and I should have won. David is my mortal enemy now. I also feel like that. I feel like I just really didn't deserve to win that. I did it for Kabir and I did it for everybody, but I didn't deserve that victory. I'll take it to be very clear, but I'm just looking at the sentence that I wrote and I don't deserve anything. I was so close. I also can't believe you won with the$1. Anyway, whatever. We're going to have some beef next year and also most assuredly a trademark lawsuit it's just coming for us and that's fine oh yeah alex in the meantime has gone on vacation she's just on santa slade flying around the world giving out gifts to all the good boys and girls it's great uh i hope she enjoys her break but david and i are sticking around to talk to noah densel who is the co-founder and ceo of nomad goods in this conversation david i really enjoyed it yeah it was fun we talked about usbc We talked about wireless charging.

1:15:40We talked about just like what it means to be an accessory company in this new world of USB-C. And it's very clear that this is a thing he spends a lot of time thinking about and having ideas about. And like he didn't tell us as much of the weird stuff that they're building as I wanted him to. But he told us some of the weird stuff. What's fascinating about this is the iPhone switching to USB-C created a vast new market for USB-C products, which is really interesting. And Noah got all the way into what that means for how he runs a business and how he can build a business around a standard like USBC.

1:16:10Right. All right. Without further ado, here's Noah Denzel, the co-founder and CEO of Nomad Goods.

1:16:21Welcome, Noah. Hey, thanks for having me. Thank you for celebrating the holidays with us by talking about USBC. Hey, this is a USBC holiday. I'm sure there's going to be it's a good subject for around the around the table discussion. confusing not too controversial yeah right everyone's got an opinion but none of the opinions matter confusing not too controversial is like the perfect tagline for usbc at this particular moment in time that's very good it's definitely confusing there's a lot of potential it's a it's a standard size but what's going on in that size there's all kinds of different things going on yeah yeah so this is why we wanted to have you on here because you're you're somebody who is actually like making this stuff for people in the world right and like just sort of poking around your website, it seems like you went at some point in the last year or so, basically like all in on USB-C.

1:17:09Like I had a hard time finding non-USB-C stuff for sale from Nomad, which I feel like in the past, your thing was kind of always like, we have all the cables for all the people. And now you're just like, it's USB-C time. Get out of here. Yeah. Our customer base tends to be very early adopter and we internally are as well. So like the second that something's even announced, We saw our sales shift from Lightning to USB-C before the iPhone 15 was shipping. For context, historically, when we've had micro USB stuff or USB-C stuff and Lightning stuff, we've always been way stronger on Lightning, five or seven times more.

1:17:46And then all of a sudden, earlier this summer, we saw that our USB-C, we launched a product actually, ChargeKey. We launched a USB-C and a Lightning version, and the USB-C version was outselling the Lightning version. That would typically never happen. This was before the iPhone 15 debuted. That was just based on rumor and speculation. So our customers are living in that forefront. So as soon as the EU says it's USB-C time, people just start going to Nomad's website and buying USB-C stuff, basically. It's wild. It's fun. They keep us busy. And that's where we like to play. You know, that's the fun, being on that front edge.

1:18:22When you're at the beginning of a new cable era, obviously, USB-C has been around for a while, but until the iPhone does it, you know, it doesn't seem to get the recognition it deserves. but it's this future proofing, which is really cool because anything you buy right now, I mean, if I were buying a car right now and it didn't have a USB-C port, I would rethink that car purchase, right? That's a massive purchase. I just would not want to be stuck behind. I mean, I honestly personally wouldn't even want it to have a USB-A port, but if it did, I would be okay with that. That's just like, we're ripping forward through USB-C and it's way better.

1:18:56The car example is really interesting, right? The experience a lot of people have with USB-C up until now-ish maybe is that it's the new charging connector. So they would buy an Android phone. It would come with a cable, maybe even a USB-A to USB-C cable, and that's how they charge their phone. And that might be how they charged everything. But then it also has this huge data functionality that is very complicated. It can also be a Thunderbolt cable. You're an accessory maker. How have you been thinking about just communicating what does what to people? Because that seems like the hardest part about USB-C.

1:19:27So we have some materials on our website and some blog information, and we probably need to do even more to explain what is USB-C. Because to us, we get the problem of we're just surrounded by this, and we've been thinking about it for years, and we assume everybody knows. Sometimes we talk about how higher wattage, charging at a faster speed, but sometimes a really helpful piece of communication is language surrounding minutes to charge. you know, 20 % in 20 minutes, that might be more relatable or, or 30 % in 20 minutes. So, so like, what is the core thing that the person wants and how is it really helping their life?

1:20:06Because what all these numbers mean? I mean, sometimes there's numbers and specs are so high and crazy and you can't even use it. The iPhone can only charge at, I think it's only rated for 20. I think it charges closer to 30. And often that's only for, for a very short amount of time, You're not necessarily getting peak speeds at all times. If you're over 80%, if you're really high up on your phone, you're going to charge slower. So trying to break it down, let people know that sometimes using the analogies of it's like a hose and the size of your hose versus these are terms that our engineers here will explain it when we're debating internally.

1:20:42This makes me think I hate buzzwords all the time. And this makes me think we really need some good buzzwords here. It's like Tesla did a good job with superchargers, right? Where there's like people now understand that there is like a way to charge your car and then there are superchargers. And those are faster because super is a big, fast word. And now it's like maybe we need like cables and fast cables and like mega cables. And it's like people will suddenly understand how these things work. We do. In companies like Nomad, we try. I mean, we come up with our own little internal buzzwords, often from a marketing standpoint to be like, you know, for example, you know, supercharging capability or something.

1:21:19It is kind of nice when there's actually a standard because then it's like, cool, we're building to that spec. We'd obviously building to a certain spec. And it can be confusing for the consumer, too, because there's real things that are like from USB, you know, the USB system, the USB standard. And there's protocols on that standard. And then there's marketing things that A, may be actually helpful because it's like, oh, I can make sense of that supercharging. B, it could just be buzzwords from a company, but maybe that company is so big that their language confuses you and sounds official when it's actually not.

1:21:52So it's wild. Yeah. So that's the basic challenge of USBC, right? It can do so many things in so many different permutations that even just talking about it is hard, which is fascinating, right? You've got to market the products. You've got to invent new things. You've got to tell people what they can do. But the business is built around something that's pretty amorphous, right? Like Nomad makes USB-C accessories. What's your relationship to the standard like? Are you thinking about the next version of how much power can come through a PD cable? Are you saying, okay, here's where the base of iPhone owners is.

1:22:29We've got to rush some products to market. Building a company around a standard seems like you need to pay a lot of attention to the standard, but you can't get too far ahead because the market hasn't gotten there yet. Yeah, I think you just brought up a great point mentioning PD. So power delivery was a great example of kind of a standard term or threshold wattage, at which point that is considered kind of the standard of fast charging. Challenges, USB-C has been just ripping and roaring forward. So I think it was 20 watts before maybe it was 18. And so at this point, charging at that speed could almost be considered kind of slow.

1:23:04So power delivery, which was fast just a couple of years ago. And like in my book, I'd call that like good, you know, solid. So yeah, staying on point with the standards. We absolutely have the problem of chasing the front edge so much. That's where the fun is. That's where the excitement is. But it also can be like too far out there for sure. We've had that happen. We actually launched our first USB-C product in 2016, I think it was. And I think it came out in 2014. But like that product had a 3000 milliamp hour integrated battery. It was 12 volt. And so you plug it into the 12 volt, the cigarette lighter thing, and it charged itself up its battery and also had an A and a C out.

1:23:41Everyone was using the A and not the C on it because it was just so early and it was kind of ahead of its time. That was in 2016. So we've been doing this C for a long time. We've been waiting for this moment for a long time. Sometimes it can be really expensive when you're trying to get on that really, really front edge and you might make a product and it's super cool. And it's like, do people really need this? And to need it, they're going to need to pay for it, right? Because some of the stuff that's not at the mass scale yet, it can be substantially more expensive. So it can be finding that sweet spot of the front edge or certainly where things are moving.

1:24:13I came across a really great word the other day called extensibility, extensible. It's a quality of something that's basically future-proofing, right? So the cool thing about USB-C is it's extensible. So they have this standard size. it's updating and it's growing, right? You know, 4K, then 8K, and then the high-speed data and this and that. So it's cool that we seem to have come to this standard size that is extensible and it's growing. And it means that for an accessory maker like ourselves, we have a big pool to play in and we have a lot of, we can bring forward ideas, we can adapt, we can update, we can be thinking about power, portable power, data.

1:24:53What if we want an issue where there's not data for security? Sometimes when you're charging in a public environment, maybe you want to ensure that data is not going through. It's exciting and interesting, and it means that there's opportunities and challenges for us to build for it. But it's certainly got so many pros, and we like that. We embrace that. It's annoying as a customer, as a consumer, to have six different cables, and you always seem to have the wrong one. Those days are kind of over, at least largely improved. I'll give you largely improved. I think over is hopeful. But that's what you got to take to the holiday table, David.

1:25:27You got to be like, Grandma, look, it's largely improved. Do you feel the spirit of Christmas? No, to your point, the thing all of that relies on, and I'm curious how you feel about this, is getting the connector itself right. If we're at a point where it is so sort of future-proof and extensible, like you're talking about, that we won't regret that choice in a decade, a lot of things will change around it. And there will be backwards compatibility stuff, but whatever. But do you feel like we got the connector right? As somebody who works with it all the time, did we do it correctly? I feel like we did.

1:25:58I've got to say, when we started in 2012 with our first product, ChargeCard, it was a 30-pin adapter for the iPhone. So I think they switched in 2012 or 2013. So when we started, it was the 2012. And they shifted to Lightning. And it was cool. It was good. Lightning is great. What we've seen, there's been kind of these, looks like there's kind of a 10-year window. So does this usher in a 10-year window? I think that we're at the beginning of a relatively large window. It's hard to say. I mean, it makes sense to me that ports would also stay around for charging. But of course, we have the whole component as well of wireless and Qi and the Qi 2 standard that's coming out.

1:26:35And does Apple want to go portless? Do some devices want to go portless and drop the port altogether? It nonetheless remaining the port, but with some option of wireless. So from what I've seen, from what we've seen, it seems like we should probably have a good 10-year window. These are the types of windows you need for it to be useful because otherwise you're on an airplane and then you're like, gosh, darn it. But aren't we at the end of the 10-year window, right? USB-C hit in what, 2015? Yeah, there's one version of it that says we're nine years into a 10-year window. Yeah, I guess it depends on the level of the adoption.

1:27:10And a big impactor is, look, you know, the United States, the iPhone is the leading smartphone. It's a leading smartphone globally. They just took it on this year. I think that's big. That's a big impactor there and should give us a decent window. It's hard to say. If they do change, it will be there. There's nobody telling you about USB-D already, right? Is this a thing that's coming next year? We just don't know that yet? Oh, gosh. Hopefully not yet. Give us a little bit of time to get the standard rolled out. So let me ask you about Apple, actually. I'm always curious to ask accessory manufacturers this.

1:27:44for the longest time there was lightning and that was your volume seller right you pointed out like that's where all the volume was that's where people were buying and lightning was pretty fixed like they rolled it out in 2012 or whatever and it never changed it was the thing it was for the whole time and you were able to build the business around that and mostly it was charging like there were just not a lot of like cool computer things you could do with a lightning port i had like a silly little camera attachment for my iphone at one point but like all this stuff fizzled out Was that because that's how Apple wanted it is because you didn't have the market?

1:28:17I always wonder if that's what all the people were buying was lightning accessories. Why were the only lightning accessories like cables and battery packs? Why weren't there anything else? Yeah, it was a very controlled and somewhat conservative market. So MFI is made for iPhone. That's the Apple sort of guidelines and program that manages it. And it's very clear and very strict guidelines. There's some wiggle room you could submit exception requests to products. We actually had a couple products that had exception requests that had to do largely with the housing that was holding the connector.

1:28:50So we made like a carabiner cable that was really cool. We made our little charge key short cable. So these were not the most wild exceptions. They're more like an industrial design exception. But it was a very controlled environment. And then you think about female, right? So when we think of Lightning, we tend to think of the male. these are the connectors that you buy and you integrate them on cables and this and that. Wait, I feel like we just need to explain to people exactly. You mean the part that you go into, right? There's the plug and there's the socket. And so when you say female, you mean the socket.

1:29:21The socket. So it was that very few products had the female lightning on them. From Apple on theirs did, right? The iPhone has anything that takes a lightning or the battery pack, for example. Lightning was really, generally speaking, was really a male program, right? It was really just a little, the connector plug that goes in. When you think of USB-C, it's double universal, right? It turns around, it's 360, you can turn it on both sides. Lightning did that too, of course, but both ends can go both ways. It's actually one of the things that I'm really excited about is that they've enabled reverse charging.

1:29:56And I know I get in trouble on these things. I say like, you know, the iPhone did this. It's like, yeah, well, the Android did that years ago. I know, I know. It's still, and it's so amazing now on USB-C because it can go both ways. So, you know, you're out at the bar and your phone's dead. You buy someone a beer, you charge your phone from their phone or vice versa. So if you're irresponsible and your battery's dead, you need one of these on these. If you're responsible, you need one of these on you so you can charge other people. So there's just cool stuff going on with USB-C. And so there's things like that that never were really part of the lightning thing because it wasn't going both ways.

1:30:29So there's things like that that just make it better and interesting and, again, confusing. Yeah. Right? if we put power in the mix, which way is it going? What's charging what? You know, you need to kind of choose on the phone or does it just go out? If it's to the AirPods, it's just going out. You're not charging the phone from the AirPods, but interesting stuff there. Yeah. Well, and even beyond just charging, it seems like one of the things we were amazed by with the iPhone was how not locked down its USB-C setup is. You can just plug most things into it. Some of them work, some of them don't, but we were sort of consistently surprised by the number of like computer-y accessories that suddenly worked with the iPhone.

1:31:06And I feel like for you, you're now in this position where you can build one set of accessories that works with iPhones, which are, it sounds like the majority of your customers, but also with the whole universe of Android phones. And then also do this gigantic set of things that you've never been able to do before with accessories. Like, has it changed the list of things you feel like you can build just because it is this universal port that theoretically you can plug almost anything into and it'll do something? Absolutely. A, from a technical standpoint, and B, from an like, now we have the opportunity to do it standpoint.

1:31:39Meaning now that everyone's together, one of my best friends is a diehard Android user. And when we launched this charge, he sent me a message, he bought five. And he said, you finally made something for Android. And of course, I'm thinking like, dude, we've been making the best cables for USB-C for years. But it's true, we're largely iPhone. So from a customer-based standpoint, so it's huge for us. And I just say that because we're all about building portable power, keeping you charged on the go, keeping you protected on the go with our cases and so forth. But it's always been part of us. And now, though, that it's obviously like this cable without question.

1:32:15It's not that there's two models and one sells more than the other. There's one model, and it goes to everyone. That's huge for us. From a research and development standpoint, it means let's probably invest more into this because we don't have to build two of them or we don't have to make a judgment call. Is there a market for this one? So it's incredible from that standpoint. We have a lot of great ideas brewing right now. We have a couple of products that are in development that are going to be released in 2024 that I think are a little bit ahead of their time, if not early. We're trying to, there's a challenge that it poses as well as the Apple lightning ecosystem was a protected kind of ecosystem, right?

1:32:53You see products at gas stations and so forth that were non-MFI, right? But if generally a customer wants to buy something, if you're buying quality product, it's MFI. So it was a controlled environment. So while there are all these annoying rules and stuff, it was a safe environment. One of the challenges of the USBC is there's less of that, right? So you go to the gas station. How do you know that that$5 cable is good? Well, if you're buying an MFI Lightning cable, it costs a lot of money,$20 or$30, but the components are coming through from the Apple ecosystem. So these are going to be challenges that we face from what you had mentioned earlier about the standard in marketing and these key terms and buzzwords.

1:33:35These are going to be challenges that we face. And so from our side, I can already see that there's going to be a little bit of some fun coming together. And hopefully some things do prevail, some solid standards and so forth, so we can give clarity to customers and what they're buying and what they can expect from the products. With all that extra resource available for research and development, do you see more in different kinds of USB-C accessories coming out now? Yeah, great question. I mean, having a cable on you at all times becomes more important than ever before. So perhaps portable cables, portability could be more important, especially as there's this universality.

1:34:14It's like there's way more reasons for why you would need it. Before, do you want to bring a cable with you? You might use it for one use case and you need another cable for another use case. That's kind of annoying. So I think we're going to see more things like that, more portable cables, and perhaps just maybe some higher quality cables where you're investing in a strong – because before, you're so annoyed. You know you've already bought 20 cables. You have a drawer in your desk filled with random cables. The last thing you want to do is spend$30 on a cable. And now it's like, hey, do the research.

1:34:45There's a really incredible high-speed data cable. I think it's the Thunderbolt one from Apple out there, 240 watts. this and that. It's nice to know that that's going to be around for a while and it's going to have so much universality and usefulness. So it could be worth investing. We have Kevlar in our cables, you know, that's coming from DuPont light. It's a licensed thing. It's like the real deal. So our cables aren't cheap, but they're really well-made. We have metal tips to them. So I can understand why someone would be annoyed a few years ago and they just want to buy the cheapest cable possible because A, it might break on them.

1:35:17B, the standards are changing. C, they need to have five different cables. But now with one, you can be a little more thoughtful about it. Yeah. Do you think I was going to ask you about the Kevlar cables because you were you were early to the idea of what I would call a ludicrously fancy charging cable. Like the Kevlar stuff you started doing like in 2019, I think. Right. That's which is like ancient history in the charging cable universe. But I think the idea that you should eventually carry the one sort of the cable that charges the hardest thing you have to charge and then kind of scales down to everything else.

1:35:48Like that seems like where we have to get in this crazy world of charging that we're going to get into that you either carry a bunch of different USB-C cables or you carry like the one like the epic cable. God cable. Right. The God cable. It's Christmas. It arrives in a virgin birth. Yeah. I'm trying to make the Christmas jokes as much as I can. So just the universal best cable. We're calling it the God cable. It is now officially known as God cable. Like is the God cable going to be a thing? Well, I guess the God cable is kind of... We already made it a thing. It happened already. This is great.

1:36:21The USB-C cable. And I mean, I would argue, I can't, I can't, I love this product. It's the best cable is the one you have on you. So I love our charge key because the best cable is with you when you need it. But isn't that the problem with USB-C is that that's not necessarily true anymore? Yeah. How fast is the charge key? You love it. I mean, I understand why you like it. Can it charge my MacBook at 100 watts? Ours, right, this version right here will just charge up to 60 watts, but we're probably going to increase the speed to go 100. The MacBook Air tops out at, I think, 35 watts. So 60 alone, you're charging really, really high speed.

1:36:55I got to run these M1 Ultras, dog. We're coming. We're coming for it. So there's something else happening there. You mentioned it before, which is MagSafe, Qi2. Just to make this stuff, there's a whole bunch of really hardcore engineering, probably for you, a bunch of supplier deals, right? The bleeding edge of USB power is all in GAN and getting supply of GAN chips in Qi2. I'm sure that the supplier base of people actually making Qi2 stuff is pretty limited right now. Let's start with GAN. That's what you need to have in order to build the most powerful USB-C stuff. How does that market work?

1:37:27Are you in it? Do you have exclusives? Do you have to fight off other vendors? Yeah, so GAN, galleon nitride is the kind of the high speed, dense, sort of compact, high speed standard, I guess you could say. When you're doing these things at first, earlier on, it's going to be more expensive. So back to your point on the supply chain and the suppliers and contract manufacturers, they're pretty on this stuff. So we're usually one of the early companies to be excited and be pushing the boundaries of those things. And for GAN, that was a couple of years ago where it was more really on the forefront.

1:38:01It's certainly become the kind of premium commodity tech, let's say, because there's still plenty of stuff out there that's not. And it's going to be less expensive. It's going to be bulkier. And when you think about costs as well in supply chain, there's the cost of freight and air freight and shipping. So it depends. What's the thing you want to build that you can't now, but the next rev of GAN would let you build? Well, I would love to go even really compact so we could have the AC to C integrated, right? So AC 120 volt in or up to 44, whatever for your other places. AC to C, extremely compact, extremely compact.

1:38:46So hyper compact. So it's so small. It fits on your key chain and it's smaller than a key fob. So it's kind of like game over with this. You can charge. You just have a wall plug on your key chain. But it's so tiny that it's elegant, right? We don't want to be carrying around a funky brick with us. I love this answer. This is completely not what I was expecting. I love it. Yeah, I was straight 110 plug on a key chain is what you're after. You're like, where's my 200 like crazy charger thing? Yeah, I was like 200 ,000 watts. Like you can plug a Tesla into a USB C like and you're like, here's what I want, like a wall.

1:39:23Like, but that's actually really interesting to think about it. That's what you can stretch out to. We're kind of just back to having power cables. Yeah, right. Only this is a power cable that has intelligence in it to self-negotiate a rate. We are just back to power cables. I don't know. I bought a power strip for$7 yesterday. It's a real thing that happened. And I did not think, I mean, maybe you should not buy one that you're going to run too many amps on. Most people do not think about a power strip. They're like, I'm going to buy a power strip. It's going to have six plugs in it. Hopefully, I can fit all my wall warts on it.

1:39:55And that's how I'm going to evaluate this power strip. And you don't think about charging speeds or delivery. With USB, you have to. and yet usbc is going to become the power cable for the world are we going to get to a place where we can just stop thinking about it that way because you're going to integrate a regular power plug on the end and we'll just negotiate it intelligently like how is that going to play out you know you've got me thinking to your previous question as well as i'm just really hopeful that it becomes as universal as it can become i'm just thinking about all the products that we have that don't use USB-C, but do use their own AC to DC wall wart thing.

1:40:31And you're plugging in with a barrel connector. It's called the little circular plug. And I think of your Dyson vacuum cleaner, your, you know, any certain mini household products, et cetera. So we still have so many products out there that are using all their weird little power systems. And then if you lose the thing, you don't know, I have a charger. I have a little air pump, like mattress air inflator thing. And I can't remember where I put that barrel plug. And I like don't buy things if they don't have USB-C, if they could have USB-C. I've been waiting for years to get a USB-C electric shaver.

1:41:02So there's all these household items and all these things that I'm excited for it to come to it. And as that happens, like back to your point on what's your like dream build, I guess like, I don't know, maybe as well, again, really boring answer. But building the cables that can supply the wattage for these household appliances and devices that might take a higher wattage to charge. Because I don't want to have still – when you look at even though USB-C has become universal for all of our portable electronics and so forth, it's not quite universal on household appliances and all these other things that are running on DC anyways and probably should go USB-C.

1:41:41And sometimes the supply chain there can be slow to change. I'm sure we all have had the experience where you bought something and you're like, wait, it's still using that cable. Yeah. You know, I'm using a mic. Granted, it's an older one right now. And it has a mini USB on it. And it's really high quality mic. It's from years ago. But even when I got it, it was weird that it had the mini on it. So sometimes things can take a while in the deep supply chain. You might go into REI to buy a light, a camping light, and it might still have micro. And I'm at a point where I'm not buying that. Like, I mean, unless it's the only one of its kind, it's just, it's gotta be USB-C.

1:42:19One of the things I've been wondering is as we get to that universality, like the, the sort of addressable market of everything USB-C goes up in a really big way. Now that it's kind of universal and available to everybody, like everybody's just going to have USB-C stuff. And part of what that makes me wonder is if like, you're talking about these sort of super niche accessories can start to come back, right? Like I feel like especially in the electronic space, you can spend an outrageous amount of money on like a really fancy case for your iPhone. And that's about it. And I now wonder if like if Neelai is going to be able to get his ultra fancy, many thousands of dollars, multi device charger, because there aren't tons of people in the world who would buy that.

1:43:01But there's just enough. And now they all can because it's USB-C. And I wonder, like, are we going to all of this stuff that's been out there until now has been sort of mainstream on purpose because you have to be in order to sort of be accessible to people who would buy this thing. But now I wonder the market is just so much bigger if it's just going to get much weirder and nichier and fancier and more luxurious. And part of that is it's really exciting to me that we're going to get to like the speaker market, right, where it's like you can buy the$20 speakers everybody has. But you can also spend 50 grand on a pair of speakers if you really want to.

1:43:33And there's just enough people in the world for that, that it works. And I wonder if we're going to get there with some of these accessories too. I kind of hope so. I hope so. I imagine it's coming. I was just chatting the other day with our supply chain director, a guy named Darren, total audiophile, and spends a good chunk of his paycheck going into these really nice speakers. I'm with you, Darren. Let's hang. Let's hang, buddy. Our people. And he was buying Monitor, British company, and just really beautiful work that they do on the metals and the housings and in industrial design, just kind of in that really upper level category.

1:44:09My left, right, and center is on. I'm with you. Darren, we vibe, baby. You guys would love it. And it was just funny looking at it and he was getting all excited about these details. And I could just imagine so many companies who are in the broader electronics, speaker, consumer space, companies that have been around for a while, have really high standards, build really cool stuff. This is an opportunity for them to go, oh, yeah, that thing finally settled all that BS of all the different cables and this and that. And granted, before the cables, not only were there different standards, they didn't have the capabilities that USB-C has.

1:44:42USB-C has a lot of capabilities. So like I was saying, we just got some new monitors in the office. And instead, we can now get USB-C cables for them or USB-C HDMI cables, because I'm sort of sick of the whole HDMI thing too. So it's just really cool what, what can happen. And I do think that with more universality, it opens the opportunity for people to take it seriously and for it to jump in and to build really cool stuff. I hope that Nomad can continue to be one of those. And I expect we're going to see some high-end competition and it'll help us help keep us sharp. And Neelai, I think we're going to, if we don't make it granted, we got some cool stuff in the works.

1:45:19I think we're going to be seeing stuff like that out there and we're in, and that's totally up our alley too so i love it all right no we gotta let you go i gotta say in the in the spirit of the holiday there's no better place to end this than with some light shit talk about htmi like that's a perfect ending for the verge cast holiday spectacular just throwing it right back at the htmi people they were our first spectacular by the way oh my gosh deeply political organization i have to tell you i thought we were going non-controversial no no it's the holidays man we're lighting this thing on fire let's talk politics no uh amazing thank you so much for joining us on the Vergecast holiday spectacular.

1:45:52Thanks guys.

1:46:02USBC, USBC, how faithful are your transfers? All right, boys and girls, that's it for the Vergecast holiday spectacular USBC edition. We hope you have a happy holiday season. We hope your families are safe. We hope you get a lot of charging cables in your stockings that can go at 240 watts and transfer data at 40 gigabits per second the gz cable if you will it's the holidays we hope you have a happy new year hold your loved ones tight throw away their lightning cables and move to one universal standard for serial communications that's it that's the verge cast holiday spectacular safe travels and rock and roll

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