Yep, true for all US based phones. Choosing the phone brand for rapid updates works only if you are not in the US and using a non-carrier locked phone. AFAIK even non-carrier locked phones in the US are branded. If I remember correctly T-Mo used to sell non-locked phones but updates still has to go through them. If you are carrier locked, the manufacturer may have already released several updates for the rest of the world, but you still won't get them if the carrier decides its too much trouble to update you.