This might be one of the best examples of the quote 'statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics." First, paint a picture of some insane scenario where Apple would be purposely nerfing phone speeds (pay special attention to how much of a weasel word 'speed' is in this context), then, (gasp!) it turns out that a completely unscientific data aggregation found the author's scenario to be true!

The big problem, though, is that the average consumer doesn't decouple processing speed and network speed.

Release-day consumers congesting the network with updates, app/music (re-)downloads, testing of new functionality, etc. seems to be the most likely reason; why would the number of people searching for 'iphone slow' sharply drop after a day or two? Are we to believe that 95% of iPhone users upgrade on the first day?