For those who don't know, the iPhone doesn't compress data like other smartphones do. It eats it up like cheetos. Every iPhone is like having a laptop tethered on the network and for people who think any other company's network could handle it, you're sorely mistaken. Verizon's EV-DO network would get absolutely owned with the data slam that the iPhone causes.
Do you mean to say that every web site, mail server, etc. has the capability to detect that it is connected to certain brand & model of phone and compress/decompress (specifically for that device) what goes/comes over the cell connection?
Certainly, most web sites use standard compression formats (H264, MPEG, etc.) for large image, audio and video files. Most smart phones handle these equally as well as any other.
I suspect a large percent of wasted [cell radio] bandwidth is for the cruft contained in XML files. XML is very verbose and I have seen typical 250%-300% overhead for the XML tags in a packet of data, for example:
A Department Phone list, showing:
Code:
EMP_ID LASTNAME FIRSTNAME PHONE DEPARTMENT EMAIL
1 Peterson Carolynn (612) 832-7654 Sales CPETERSON
2 Heartsdale Dave (612) 832-7201 Accounting FHEARTSDALE
3 Stewart Linda (612) 832-7478 Administration LSTEWART
4 Smith Aaron (612) 832-7201 Accountings ASMITH
5 Barken Peter (612) 832-7023 Engineering PBARKEN
6 Jennings Linda (612) 832-7026 Engineering LJENNINGS
7 Jacobson Peter (612) 832-7652 Sales PJACOBSON
8 Frankin Richard (612) 832-7672 Sales RFRANKLIN
9 Smith Jenna (612) 832-7422 Administration JSMITH
10 Manley Erica (612) 832-7657 Sales EMANLEY
11 Cabrerra Francisco (612) 832-7041 Engineering FCABRERRA
12 Leary Michelle (612) 832-7047 Engineering MLEARY
13 Branden Dominique (612) 832-7049 Accounting DBRANDEN
14 Reardon Walter (612) 832-7427 Administration WREADON
15 Barnes David (612) 832-7615 Sales DBARNES
XML Packet: 740 data characters + 1,989 XML tags = 2,729 total or 269% overhead
Also there is the CPU power (and battery power on the smart phone) needed to encode/decode the XML packet at both ends of the connection.
The worst part is that there is no need to have a human-readable format (except when debugging) for one machine to communicate with another machine.
Dick