Hopes that Apple would provided iPhone and iPod Touch users with worth wild features and fixes in the newest firmware upgrade where dashed rather quickly on January 15^th. While many had hoped for even a simple copy and paste function, it would seem that Apple had other things on their agenda, specifically getting the two devices ready to handle what would come from the SDK release in February. But dashing hopes wasn’t all that iPhone firmware 1.1.3 has done, it also has managed to cause some pretty serious and annoying issues that you usually expect a firmware to fix, not create.

This new firmware sports a few interesting new additions. iPhone users can now enjoy the luxury of texting multiple contacts at once, a function standard in nearly all cell phones today. You can also completely move around all of your icons by simply pressing on any one of them until they shake, then drag them around that page or even on to another one. Until the SDK comes along you won’t have a real need to utilize more than one page with the standard icons, but thanks to the newest feature allowing you to add bookmarked icons directly to your home page, you might have a need for a page or two if you’d prefer never to open the favorites button in your

The Google Maps application received a majority of the love from this update, most notably its newest ability to triangulate your location using nearby cell phone towers. Although I don’t recommend using that feature while driving as its radius isn’t quite exact, it helps a lot when you’re trying to figure out exactly where you are. They have also made it possible to place your own pins on the map, making it much easier to figure out how to get to your destination from that dead end street you took a wrong turn on to. And if those features weren’t enough for the Google Maps application, you can new view a hybrid map.

Unfortunately users are reporting all sorts of errors from both the installation process and after the fact as well. Issues with installation seem to be geared around iTunes version 7.6, but mostly the problems occur after the installation. The most common issue seems to be that messages sent and received show up out of order within that specific chat session. This can be mildly confusing when trying to reference a few hours or days back in your conversation. Many have also reported that the internal speaker has also cut out for them along with several Bluetooth devices failing to work even though they were fine in 1.1.2.

While the new features add some depth to the JesusPhone, many of us are still left wondering when we will get cut and paste. With the SDK around the corner, perhaps a third party application will beat Apple to it. But honestly, I’d prefer that my iPhone caught up with the technology that every smart phone already offers.