Phone cameras are getting better and better, but not all environments permit photography or video recording. The strictest environments don’t even allow devices in that have such capabilities, hence the discovery of the camera-less iPhone.
One user’s post in the subreddit r/MildlyInteresting, about the iPhone of his buddy who works at a nuclear plant, recently ruffled feathers by being too interesting.
Camera-less iPhones for ‘sensitive areas’ such as military, power and lab sites
A post in the subreddit r/MildlyInteresting shows a picture of what looks like an iPhone with no camera.
The caption claims that it belongs to someone who works at a nuclear plant: “No cameras allowed.”
A similar or identical post also appears on Hacker News, where it has prompted a comment from someone who says they used to be in the Navy.
They say that to make it “anywhere near a boat,” a phone couldn’t have a camera. However, “they would also accept permanently disabling it.”
“A shipmate took his shiny new BlackBerry Storm, hole-punched the camera, and got security to sign off on it.” This would be the low-tech solution. It’s also decidedly cheaper than the alternative, which is to have someone modify an existing phone for a substantial fee, so that it doesn’t have a camera at all.
NonCam has been ‘making’ non-camera iPhones since 2011
Registered in Singapore, NonCam makes customized original non-camera iPhones “for customers who work in sensitive areas.”
These areas include the oil and gas industries, military sites, and laboratories. Basically, anywhere trade secrets are particularly valuable, or have something to do with national security.
Well, they don’t appear to “make” them, per se. Rather, they edit them down to being camera-free. They also sell conversion kits for $250 a pop.
“We understand the pain of having to use a ‘dumb-phone,’” reads their website. “Or a horrible cheap non-camera Android device which freezes every time you try to do something with it.”
This is what they’re trying to remedy. Their customers include businesses in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
Smartphones without cameras are more expensive than equivalent smartphones
Because the market for them is comparatively small, manufacturers don’t make camera-less smartphones in the same quantities as they do “regular” smartphones.
This means they can’t make them as cheap. In a capitalist economy, supply will rarely outstrip demand, and if it does, only by accident. And this, in turn, means it’s cheaper to get a regular smartphone and put tape over the camera (or, indeed, hole-punch it) than it is to get a smartphone without one.
In reality, there’s a dearth of smartphones without cameras. Many camera-less phones are so-called “dumb phones,” often promoted as enabling you to “get back in touch with reality” by forgoing all the newest capabilities.
And even for someone who doesn’t mind having a phone camera – they come with some neat features, after all – but for whom it isn’t a priority, advice on which phone they should buy is thin on the ground.
For its part, Vice recommends the Wisephone II, Light Phones II and III, and the Unihertz Jelly Star.
