It is not enough to be the first one to ship. I shipped a Mac app that uses whisper to transcribe audio before anyone else, I even implemented a dictation algorithm on top of it. It was my first app, I am not an ios developer. However, after a while, someone with a better track record in app development came up and made a similar stuff. He knows how to build an audience, and he knows how to market an app. As a result, smashed out the app I developed.

So I don't think being the first one is that much important, it is not also important to take care clean coding etc. Someone with better marketing skills probably would ruin every work you did.