MIDI 2.0
The first major revision of MIDI since 1983 — higher resolution, two-way conversation between devices, and full backward compatibility.
The original controller values have 128 steps, which you can hear as a staircase when a filter sweeps slowly. MIDI 2.0, adopted in January 2020 by the MMA and Japan's AMEI, wraps messages in the Universal MIDI Packet with 16-bit velocity and 32-bit controller values, and makes room for 256 channels instead of 16. The per-note expression that MPE had to fake with one channel per note is now built in.
The real novelty is MIDI-CI, Capability Inquiry: two devices first ask what the other can do, and fall back to MIDI 1.0 if no answer comes. A thirty-year-old synth therefore keeps working. Apple added support in 2021, but a standard that has to coexist with every old DIN cable on the planet spreads at a tectonic pace.