No blog's been tougher on Apple than this one, which has reported on the iPhone bricking fiasco since its outset. Earlier today, I noted that even some legit users seem to have been ensnared in iPhone update hell. However, the latest check of Apple's forums indicate that most owners who haven't unlocked their phones or loaded them up with third-party apps aren't having problems loading the 1.1.1 update onto their devices.The relevant thread is here, under the heading "Anyone able to install update WITHOUT problems?" Qualitatively speaking, the answer seems to be yes, by a ratio of about three to one.

The biggest stumbling block to a successful update appears to be patience. A user registered as 4n6doc wrote the following:

"The only advice I have is that the firmware update can take several minutes, during which it may look like the update might not be working. Resist the urge to disconnect the phone during this time. If you are a person who will sit there and stare at the screen and get nervous, just walk away for 10 minutes and you will come back to a nicely updated phone."

However, a user identified as aaplannie was not so lucky.

"Problems here. I have lost everything I had loaded onto the phone and had to 'restore' the firmware. Photos gone, tunes gone, phone numbers gone, everything. I have not messed with the phone or tried any work arounds. It's as it came from the factory. Thanks Apple."

Dave Williams reports that his update went without a hitch. "I think it took under 15 minutes total and half of that time was for the download," he posted. "Phone rebooted and reactivated itself. Didn't lose anything on the phone, Wi-Fi settings and passwords are unaffected. It's all good so far."

Ditto for forum denizen ryanboi056. "No problems here as it took me a total of 5-10 minutes to do the update," he wrote. "I did get a little scared when it said when I had to activate my iphone after the update, but that disappeared right away."

The impression I get from the forum is that there are no middling experiences. Either the update takes, or you've got a veritable brick on your hands. That was the case for Zinnmaster:

"I had all sorts of problems. It froze halfway thru download and install of 1.1.1, at the point where it displays Yellow Triangle. It said Please connect to iTunes. It already was, so I disconnected it and powered off and then back on. It resumed install, but during sync to restore my data onto it, it kept stopping to say 'Not connected' or 'Cannot find appropriate sync to disk' or something similar. Very strange. I finally restarted both iPhone and MacBook Pro and it resumed sync from place it had frozen.

So is the update worth it? According to Anjunafreak, 1.1.1 is a good thing. "The software seems to be running a lot smoother," the happy user wrote. "The beautiful transition effects between screens happens more frequently."

What's been your experience? Read the previous posts in this series, then ping me, or post your tale below.