Snappli, a free service for iOS that cuts down on mobile broadband data use, gained $ 1 million in new funding on Wednesday from Greylock Partners, Index Ventures and Klaus Hommels. The news coincides with the Snappli app coming out of beta in the U.S. and U.K., where it is available in the Apple iTunes App Store. What makes Snappli more interesting than its peers, such as Onavo, is that it doesn’t just compress mobile web traffic, but also can use less data for apps, videos and images.
Data compression isn’t exactly new: Both Research In Motion and the Opera browser teams have long used it as a differentiator. The idea is to cut down on the amount of data on smartphones and tablets by compressing the content before it gets to a user. And as unlimited data plans continue to be an endangered species, solutions such as these could have greater appeal and help prevent data overages. According to Snappli, its users are saving $ 37 annually with data reductions up to 85 percent on Instagram and 72 percent on YouTube, for example.
But Snappli is quick to note that savings are just part of what it offers: Fewer bits of content being passed from a mobile broadband network to a device can result in a speed boost as well. Snappli says that its users experience the mobile web twice as fast as a result.
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The new app is supported on devices running iOS 4 and up, which means the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, in addition to iPod touches and iPads. You won’t see any speed boost on Wi-Fi devices, nor Android phones, at least not yet. Once the app is installed, you can customize the compression level in order to sacrifice a little video or image quality for some data savings and speed, for example. And the software offers up information showing how much data you’ve saved over time and even on a per-app basis.
Here at GigaOM, we were so impressed with Snappli that we chose it as one of our top 10 Launchpad finalists for our upcoming Mobilize 2012 event. The company will join nine others on stage to impress the judges and become the best of the best on Sept. 20, so join us to hear more about Snappli.
