The whole iPhoneTracker kerfuffle has rasied some good information on python scripts and other code examples that can parse the most recent mbdb files.
See http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/#2 and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3085153/how-to-parse-the-manifest-mbdb-file-in-an-ios-4-0-itunes-backup
The stack overflow question has the goods on many tools and several good explanations of the technical details. I also have good things to say about the book iOS Forensic Analysis by Sean Morissey