I don't believe that's necessarily true. This is more passive than active, and piggybacking off an universally recognized brand can be quite beneficial.

Apple has spent billions of dollars crafting a brand that inspires trust, quality, and modernness - and regardless of how an individual feels about Apple on a conscious level, the strong majority probably associate those three things with Apple products.

Slapping a Macbook Air in their design passively speaks to viewers by saying "we're a quality brand, you can trust us, and we're the future in this outdated industry." If you look around, you'll actually see that a lot of successful startups (usually post-first generation) piggyback off one aspect or another of established brands.