This carries on from my previous post (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4182664/ipad-app-pull-and-push-relational-data). My plan is that when the ipad application starts I am going to pull data (config data i.e. Departments, Types etc etc relational data that is used across the system) from a webhosted MS SQL Server DB via a webservice and populate it into an SQL Lite DB on the IPad. Then when I load a listing I will pull the data over the line again via a webservice and populate it into the SQL Lite db on the ipad (than just run select commands to populate the listing).

My questions are: 1. What is the most efficient way to transfer data across the line via the web? Everyone seems to do it a different way. My idea is that I will have a webService for each type of data pull (e.g. RetrieveContactListing) that will query the db and than convert that data into "something" to send across the line. My question really is what is the "something" that it should be converting into? 2. Everyone talks about odata services. Is this suited for applications where complex read and writes are needed?

Ive created a simple iphone app before that talked to an sql server db (i just sent my own structured xml across the line) but now with this app the data calls are going to be a lot larger so efficiency is key.