Actually, Samsung does use a different battery chemistry in their S8 phones and newer. Primarily, it was designed to be safer (don't want a repeat of the Note 7 issues), but it had the added benefit that it always degrades at a slower rate as a a result.
Honestly, 500 cycles is nothing for a lithium ion battery these days, seriously, how many phones even make it through an entire day on a charge, even brand new? But lets assume it does, you are looking at 365 charges a year, which means a 500 cycle would be about a year and a half. We know that there are batteries that can last longer because they are being used in electric vehicles and plugin hybrids, some of which, like Tesla are estimated to last 5,000+ cycles before degrading more than 10%. Yes, there will be outliers that degrade faster and slower, but this is the average.
So again, we know it is possible to get a better quality battery, the question is why can't Apple get it?