The Vergecast USB-C Holiday Spec-tacular

Our annual podcast tradition of honoring a consumer technology standard celebrates the universal serial bus.

Happy holidays! Here is The Vergecast’s gift to you: over 90 minutes of audio content dedicated to USB-C.

Every holiday season, we think about what consumer technology standard has impacted our gadgets throughout the year — and without a doubt, 2023’s favorite standard has to be USB-C. We saw the iPhone 15 finally switch over to the Type C port, a glimpse of 240W USB-C PD chargers, dongles that can relieve mosquito bites, and whole bunch of high-powered GaN chargers. Though the adoption has been slow since its introduction in 2013, we’re almost at a point where we only need one cable to charge all our gadgets (2024 resolution?). So that’s what this year’s Vergecast Holiday Spec-tacular is all about.

The Verge’s Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz start the final show of 2023 with some chat about the state of USB-C: the ups and downs of charging gadgets, the ubiquity of one cable, and what the future looks like for gadgets with ports.

After that, the crew competes in a few rounds of USB-C Price is Right, a game we made up to show how confusing USB-C and its specs can be. Nilay, David, and Alex each play for a Vergecast listener to win an awesome Verge swag basket from our merch store.

David and Nilay end the holiday show with Noah Dentzel, the CEO and co-founder of Nomad Goods, to talk about how USB-C on the iPhone has changed his business, the challenges of building cables, and what tech accessories he’s most excited about in 2024.

Thank you so much to everyone who listened to the show this year, we really appreciate it. Have a happy, safe, and fast-charging holiday. We’ll see you in 2024!