In this case doing better than the competition doesn't mean doing well. It doesn't even mean acceptable.
I don't use any apple products and I don't really care either way, but saying that they're better than the competition doesn't mean anything.
How does that statement even have a basis? How else can you benchmark anything? You need SOMETHING to base your placement on.
Past performance even, which was considered in that article. How can we award gold medals if there is no competition to base that award upon?
You can say that company A's product is 10x better. But, it doesn't mean that company A's product is good. It just isn't the worst.