Does Apple have a head start on most things they do? Most observers acknowledge they aren't usually the first to do something, rather, they're good at execution and polish. They were beaten to market on pretty much everything: watches, bezelless displays with notch (e.g. Essential Phone), smart/speakers (Amazon, Google, Sonos), Streaming/TV (Roku, Amazon, Chromecast), etc.
Really, I think the world would be better if they published more openly and were more open, and I don't think it would really hurt their ability to outsell their competitors at all. Let's say they're working on AR glasses (which they probably are) and Samsung catches wind of this and rushes to market with Samsung AR glasses. How many Apple fans actually think this will make a difference to people in the Apple ecosystem buying Apple AR glasses?
At this point I think the secrecy does more harm than good.
Maybe there's zero business value in keeping secrets (I don't believe that at all), but even if that were the case and Apple were just overly obsessed with "the prestige" [1][2], why would that change anything? They should be free to operate the company in anyway they want. Apple's a 40 year old business and everyone knows their culture. Employees know what they're signing up for (and I think their first day is an orientation about this topic specifically).
If they told the world that the solution for touch screen phones failing in the market was this little idea called the “proximity sensor”, Google would have beaten them to the market with Android and the iPhone would be far less successful.
Apples success is built on unique inventions, in design, software and hardware. They rarely are first to market in any category. They are almost always first to market with the first mass market useful combination of features in those categories.
Except that wasn't at all what Android was when the iPhone was released. Android was still a Blackberry clone at that period in time due, in part, to the secrecy surrounding the technology in the iPhone.
The technology used on both of those was not on other phones before Apple did it. "Face recognition" and "fingerprint scanning" are not the same thing as "Face ID" and "Touch ID".
The fingerprint sensor made by Authentec, was the centerpiece of a Motorola Moto X1 and slated to be in Google's Nexus 6 before Apple bought their supplier, effectively preventing the release. That's why those devices were released with a dimple where the fingerprint sensor was going to be, even though there was nothing in that spot where the finger rests.
That is to say, TouchID capacitive fingerprint scanning was going to be shipped in Android first and Apple delayed the market introduction with a strategic acquisition.
Prior devices like the Motorola Atrix and Toshiba G500 also had fingerprint biometrics.
Are the Moto X1 and the Nexus the same phone? The parent comment seemed to suggest that they were 2 different phones. Even in that case, what Apple released was slightly different from what AuthenTec had created at the time so I don't see how anyone can say that Touch ID was out before Apple brought it to market.
The more you can hide from them, the more of a head start you can have over them.