In an offline file a traditional sync would mirror all the data from the host to the files however in some work flows that could take longer for the initial sync especially for a lot of resource tables needed just for navigation or system logic.

now that we have native JSON parsing in FM16 would it be faster to sync a single table with arrays of information and then logic on the remote device to explode out to interface tables or virtual lists table based on the array over mirroring multiple tables and records.

Especially if the sync is only a one way push out to the remote and business logic doesn't require these tables to be modified or sync back to the host. 

 

We're already pretty much doing what you're talking about, but instead of JSON we do a return-separated list of Let($field1=value1; $field2=value2; etc...).

The new JSON functions have many admirable advantages for performing certain operations. Speed is not one of them. (Unless the serialized data format is JSON, there's nothing you can do to change that, and the only alternative parsing method is other built-in FileMaker functions.)