I find it very strange to make this judgement by comparing Apple to Microsoft, nvidia, Meta. None of those companies are in the same business as Apple. If Apple fails to “beat” these companies they will still have incredibly popular consumer products and successful services.
The competition is only in the mind of business writers and pundits; it maybe matters for the stock market but Apple has never made their stock the main driver of their efforts.
Apple is in all of their businesses. OS ecosystem, graphics hardware, AR/VR.
They don't need to beat these companies outright, but the more they fail to provide value relative to the competition, the more they will see users leave.