I've been friends with journalist on the Apple beat for major publications. Apple is notoriously picky about who it gives early product announcements too, and they never _ever_ purposefully "leak" anything.
Apple does play favorites. If you are in Apple's good graces and play by their rules, their team will give you early access to you have more time to write in-depth reviews about their devices (But don't EVER think about prematurely releasing the story). If you get on their bad side, you're pretty much stuck and have to wait like normal people for launched product releases.
Apple does play favorites. If you are in Apple's good graces and play by their rules, their team will give you early access to you have more time to write in-depth reviews about their devices (But don't EVER think about prematurely releasing the story). If you get on their bad side, you're pretty much stuck and have to wait like normal people for launched product releases.