Re: Which models get sent for review?
"Anyway, this guy is just a web blogger, even if they send review phones to major sites like CNET he wouldn't get one."
Let me spell it out more slowly.
Tech obsessives fuss about every performance metric, no? Even if it is real world irrelevant. Apple I'm sure is aware that the 32G version is, for whatever reason but simple striping seems most likely, much slower on writes than the large memory version. But it doesn't matter because the ones they give out to their favoured (i.e. not El Reg) reviewers will be the big memory ones, so they are not going to notice the slower write speed of the 32G. Typical bloggers are not going to buy two very expensive phones to do a comparison.
The level of bottom-licking on many product reviews shows just how desirable approval by Apple can be in terms of access and test gear. I have the impression that Apple doesn't really need to do this in terms of technical specification - their phones do tend to outperform everything else in straight numbers - it's just control freakery laid down in the original DNA. The main benefit to Apple is that favoured reviewers tend not to report on non-adherence to standards or other commercial practices, and that they tend to rubbish competitor products.