Christopher Evans

After the announcement of the iPhone 5S in champagne gold, people went a little crazy for gold smartphones. The gold model of the iPhone became worth quite a lot and sought after, despite being a tad flashy and tacky, in my opinion. Samsung took this hype as an opportunity to post about its gold Galaxy S4 (exclusive to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait) a few weeks after the Apple announcement, getting some serious hate along the way.

As tradition demands, everyone immediately started accusing Samsung of copying Apple. That really seemed to be the case, and Samsung didn’t seem to have any sort of defense this time around. Even if it wasn’t a legal issue, it wasn’t a cool move in many people’s eyes. But apparently, Samsung isn’t the bad guy in this case.

The announcement of the golden Galaxy S4 was not actually an announcement, but a reminder that the device exists. The device was announced on August 27 and released on September 8, a full two days before Apple even announced the golden iPhone 5S. Samsung, at least to a degree, cannot be accused of copying Apple.

On top of that, Samsung speaks about its long history of making golden devices, some even with real gold, proving that Apple did not invent the golden smartphone and people shouldn’t be making such accusations over a color.

So there you have it. Samsung should not be getting so much crap for having a golden smartphone in their lineup, especially now that we know it was both announced and released before the announcement of the gold 5S. And even then, copying a color isn’t the best accusation to make. So rest easy knowing that everyone can have golden phones.