This is the best solution. Actually, if you have money, in my experience, the best is to have an iPhone dedicated to that. Sometimes even on stock Android (Pixel 10 Pro) you get weird incompatibilities. E.g. trying to connect to a DJI drone, paying with Google Wallet, getting a train transit card in Japan… An iPhone supports all daily life use cases with predictability. So my solution right now is to have one iPhone where I keep things clean, and one Android where I do whatever I want. :)
(I do get the odd look when I take out my second phone to do something else in public and questions about it :))
Replying late, but yes I agree. What matters is the bottom line, and the vast majority of apps should be using JSON because this is the most economical when it comes to engineering time.
Base64 and JSON takes a lot of CPU to decode; this is where Protobuf shines (for example). Bandwidth is one thing, but the most expensive resources are RAM and CPU, and it makes sense to optimize for them by using "binary" protocols.
For example, when you gzip a Base64-encoded picture, you end up 1. encoding it in base64 (takes a *lot* of CPU) and then, compressing it (again! jpeg is already compressed).
I think what it boils down to is scale; if you are running a small shop and performance is not critical, sure, do everything in HTTP/1.1 if that makes you more productive.
But when numbers start mattering, designing binary protocols from scratch can save a lot of $ in my experience.