I have the weirdest and sometimes most profound thoughts about the most useless stuff. I actually asked myself this question whilst in the shower this morning: is there going to be a USB-D? Do we need a successor to USB-C or is it good enough for the time being?
When these types of questions pop into my head, I have to Google them. I actually stepped out of the shower and before reaching for a towel, I grabbed my phone and had to find out. With the water dripping onto my phone screen and floor, I set out to find the answer.
Given the iPhone doesn’t even support the USB-C standard yet (opting for its own Lightning Connector™) I wonder if it’s due to limitations in the standard or fact Apple doesn’t want to have to change their cables again, after the controversy they generated a few years ago when they did it.
Anyway, back on the topic at hand. In terms of the USB-C specification, it is relatively quite new. It wasn’t published and finalised until August 2014, which isn’t that long ago.
It turns out the answer is not exciting at all, there is no publicly announced successor to the USB-C cable standard. In terms of capabilities, it seems USB-C is capable of supporting quite a high throughput with the recently announced USB 4 standard supporting speeds up to 40gbps (which is super fast) and will require compatible USB-C cables to take advantage of it.
It is naive to assume that USB-C will be as good as it gets. Once upon a time, USB-A and USB-B were probably considered enough and then technology evolved and times changes.
I wonder though, will they call it USB-D or something a little less silly-sounding opting for something like USB-Next or USB-Z?
Good $diety I hope they choose the sensible USB-D. Cute names like USB-Next or USB-Z give very little logical progression for the next one after that!