It's noteworthy that while Apple uses a custom version of Sony's camera sensor for iPhone 6/6s, Samsung also uses Sony's IMX240 sensor in its Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, at least in the versions it sends to reviewers. Regular users are finding that Samsung might also swap in its own ISOCELL camera sensors to save money, resulting in reduced image quality.
Oh my. . . Samsung was caught once before in cheating on their benchmarks testing by swapping out the normal routines when ever the system sensed benchmark testing software by turning off all background system functions, turbo boosting the processor clocks, and turning on all non-usual optimization routines for the sensed benchmarks test, which were against all the testing rules, to spoof the results. Sending test samples to reviewers that are NOT the same as the retail version strikes me as being in the same category, intending to get higher review ratings for their cameras than the product the consumers will be buying. Paging VW?
Not really analogous to VW. VW went out on a limb for their customers, by sticking a thumb in the eye of busybody regulators to get buyers the best-performing vehicle possible, and exposing themselves to do so. What Samsung is doing is cheating. Not comparable at all.