Doing well in the market and competing on performance are two different things.

Apple isn't competing to have the highest market share but to have most of the profit, and they have something like 90% of all the profit in the phone market. They also have most of the profit in the consumer computer market.

Apple dominates the premium segment where all the profits are. To dominate that segment you need the better performing phones. Sure somebody can make a weak phone at low price and low margins and sell a lot. But whether you can call selling lots of phones at razor thin margin a success or not is another question.

Secondly Apple will not appeal to everyone. It is an opinionated brand, which does things in a particular way. That is okay. I don't think you get good products by trying to be all things to all people.