Samsung is Apple’s number one parts supplier, the two companies actually do work together on many different business projects. It all just comes down to what each sees as best for their own mission.
My expectation is that Samsung will watch the market. If the demand is there for HomeKit, that will justify the cost and complexity of adding it. If not they’ll compete as an alternative. Right now there’s not enough to HomeKit to really draw many partners in. It’s all about future potential. We’ll just have to see what happens.
My experience with Apple is the same as that of many people with significant physical disabilities (I’m quadriparetic with limited hand function.) While they can put out something with bugs, like any manufacturer of complex products, the things that work work in a way that makes sense. I am frequently pleasantly surprised by something that’s built into the operating system that just makes my life easier without making a more physically able person’s life more difficult.
They recently received the Helen Keller technology award from the National Federation of the blind, and I can promise you it was very much deserved. Google the news story for details, I don’t want to hijack this thread. But it does seem that Apple just thinks about the customer experience while using a device in a different way from many other companies.
I see many other offerings where the design seems to have been aimed at the point of purchase. What would look good in an ad, or in a store, when someone was deciding whether to buy their product.
I don’t see many technology products that seem designed around “a day in the life” of the person who has already purchased it. Not just the 30 second advertisement moment, but the transitions between those moments, the repetition of an event, the unexpected which requires a change in a pre-programmed schedule and the simplicity of setting up that schedule in the first place.
Use cases instead of features.
I recently spoke to both Apple and Samsung about getting a new phone. There are some accessibility features that I require. The Apple representative was able to give me all the information that I wanted.
The Samsung representative needed to know which carrier I would be using, because the features are different. When I said I hadn’t decided on a carrier, but gave a choice of two, the representative was still unable to answer the question because she didn’t have the information for one of the two. When I then called that carrier, they referred me back to the phone manufacturer. That has been typical in my experience.
When I first got my Apple Watch, there was one frustrating thing about voice text. Unlike voice text on the phone, there was a literal physical Tap required to complete sending the message. Presumably that was to prevent sending something without realizing it. But it did make things physically much more difficult for me. I sent in the feedback note to Apple through the website, and a representative got back to me and asked for more details. they were sympathetic and familiar with the differences between the watch and the phone.
When the new watch operating system came out recently, there’s now a new feature. After you complete a voice text, it’s displayed to you, and now you have a choice between either tapping to send or using voice to say send. So now it’s touchfree to send texts on the watch as well.
They didn’t make a big deal about it, and I’m sure it would seem clunky to someone who didn’t need to use it, but it’s there for those of us who do.
“Day in the life” design. All I can say is it works well for me. 
