It seems that a bunch of bloggers received pre-release Verizon iPhones for review. It's probably because expectations have already been set for the iPhone 4 and Apple doesn't need to worry about reviews negatively affecting initial sales.

It's not often that you see two reviews for essentially identical products from the same source. This was a pretty smart move by Apple.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/technology/personaltech/03...

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2011/02/verizon-iphone/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch did. He just published his review, which was pretty much the same as John's. But Gizmodo... ha. That'll be the day!

No problem, but she's a he.

Could it perhaps have been supplied by Verizon instead? They'd be the ones with the most to gain right now in terms of PR - get all the bloggers to talk about how much better the network is since the hardware itself is a non-story (which is exactly what the ones I've read have said so far).

UPDATE: The footnote in Gruber's article actually says "supplied by Apple" so... guess not. :)

Apple invited Gruber as press to the iPhone 4 Antennagate conference last year. He was also invited to the opening of the Philly Apple Store. Apple isn't the only one reaching out to Gruber — Google sent him a Nexus S for review as well (which I don't think he ever got around to writing).

But Grubber was not invited to the Verizon iPhone announcement. https://twitter.com/gruber/status/24937327675580416

That was Verizon's event and they sent out the invites.

Which was actually an Apple Event in disguise. Gizmodo, Ryan Block and Leo Laporte were not invited.

Macworld wasn't invited to Verizon's iPhone event too.

My (uneducated) guess is that Verizon handled the event, but Apple passed along a blacklist to Verizon.

Apple has warmed to Gruber in the last year. One of Steve Jobs' replies to a customer email quoted him directly and said that he was "very insightful"

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/10/steve-jobs-responds-to-ipho...

"and positive" don't forget that ;)