One of the Berble iPhone's got the 1.1.3 update last night, here are a few first impressions.

The update itself went smoothly, I did need to try several times before the servers could be reached but as I was trying just after the keynote announcement finished I will let them off. Updating the phone didn't result in any loss of data for me, nothing needed to be re synced to the phone afterwards.

Once everything is where you want it you press the home key to lock everything back into place, the additional home screens are then accessed with a left or right swipe.

Anyway, back to another feature than can be used on the home screens right now, web clips.

Safari now adds an "Add to Home Screen" option alongside the standard bookmark button, this not only allows you to put links to your favourite websites on the home screen, it also remembers the zoom and pan settings, so you can link to a certain area of a certain page.

These new icons will have a delete X above them when they are jiggling, so they can be removed if not needed.

The SMS function gets a small update, multiple recipients are now permitted when sending, MMS messages are still not possible which is a real shame.

Next up, Google maps, this seems to have had the most work done. A button to find your approximate location is added, this gets information from cell towers and wifi hotspots and gives you a general location fix. My tests were never less than a mile out so while no substitute for proper GPS it is useful to narrow down your location if you are somewhere unfamiliar.

Directions and a new hybrid view (overlaying roads/names on to the satellite view) are also present bringing it more in line with functionality on other platforms.

iPod functionality has been updated mainly on the video side, support for the new movie rentals, chapters and language being the noticeable updates, lyrics support has been added on the music side.

Thats about it, a little disappointing really, seems to be just laying the groundwork before the SDK is released as there are a couple of glaring omissions.

Multimedia messaging should really make an appearance and the camera application is still as basic as they come, video recording would be nice, the lack for flash support in the browser is also disappointing.

And where is iChat? I'm sure it's the phone companies keeping that out, probably in a bid to protect SMS revenue, but these days an IM client is a must on a connected device.

We'll all have to just wait and see what the SDK brings in February.

Apple.com