Believe it or not, it was close to four years ago that I asked, “Is the world ready for USB 4?” The USB 4 standard was first introduced to the world during the height of our lockdown era and promised all sorts of things. It would spell an end to proprietary power adapters, be the last nail in the coffin for the old-school USB type A plug, and let you transfer data so quickly you’d never wait for anything again.
Except we did wait, and we’re still waiting, for USB 4 to really take over the world. You’ll find it in high-end laptops and of course Apple is using it in its new computers. But for most of us, even if we have a relatively new device it’s not using USB 4. The biggest device to tout USB compatibility in 2023, the iPhone 15, still uses USB 3.2. While that’s not bad at all, it makes you wonder if we’ll ever see widespread USB 4 adoption, or if we will even care.
How fast is fast enough?
Sure, I’ve said it before: the problem with instant gratification is that it takes too long. (Sources attribute that quote to Carrie Fisher, but I’m not sure she was the first to say it.) In theory, nothing could ever be fast enough to satisfy our need for information or data. With USB 3.2 you can download at 10Gbps, which is fast enough to send an hour of 4K video down the line in 30 seconds. USB 4 says that’s not fast enough, doubling its top speed to 20Gbps. USB 4 also allows for power transfer of 100 watts without having to rely on Intel’s Thunderbolt technology, but I’m not so sure why relying on Thunderbolt is such a problem.
What I’m saying here is that like wired Ethernet, USB has probably reached the point of becoming an overachiever. It’s not terribly hard to get a 10Gbps connection with wired Ethernet. In practice, no one has it at home and most businesses don’t either. 1Gbps is enough. In fact it’s more than enough when the average download speed over the internet barely tops 100Mbps (one tenth of 1Gbps). USB 4 has gotten to that point where it’s so fast that no average person will use its speed. It’s great that it performs in a lab or for hard-core creatives, but no one else seems to care.
And that’s why…
…your average USB-equipped device doesn’t have USB 4, and it probably won’t. At least for a while, anyway. No one is begging for it, no one would even notice. Sure it would be cool to have a laptop with nothing but a couple of USB-C connectors and that’s it. No need for a power connector or an HDMI port or whatever. Problem is, Apple tried that with their laptops and people didn’t like it. Now, maybe if Apple had put 6 USB ports on their laptops then people wouldn’t care. But they didn’t, and newer Apple products have gone back to dedicated power connections and HDMI ports. You can use the USB ports for power or video if you want, but you won’t, because you’ll need them for other stuff.
So, at least in 2024, I say “pffft” to USB 4. Better luck next year, I guess. Maybe by then someone will have a reason for me to notice.
