That iPhone in the image is not a render or a concept. It is a real model that is sold today. It may seem surprising that someone chooses these models over normal ones, but the reality is that there are certain scenarios in which camera phones are not an option.
It happens, for example, in military, industrial or scientific fields: in certain cases, soldiers and workers operate in areas or projects that should not be photographed, so to avoid this, it is best to use mobile phones without a camera.
It is forbidden to take photos
For years, one of the main claims of our smartphones has been their cameras. It is in fact a weighty argument to try to compete in the high range and justify a high price, but there are situations in which precisely the camera is not an important element: it is almost dangerous.
A company called NonCam is dedicated precisely to selling modified iPhones and also “conversion kits” for models such as iPhone 7. With them it is possible to eliminate a mobile phone that does everything that a normal iPhone does, except for the photos.
NonCam managers themselves explain that this type of modified mobile phones are used in “sensitive industries” such as the military and defense sectors, the oil industry or certain government laboratories.
One of the most known cases is that of the Singapore army, which had already been using these terminals for at least a decade. On Reddit, some users commented on how they knew people in the US Air Force who had to remove the cameras from their iPhones.
The iPhone models that NonCam works with, of course, are somewhat old, but still the modification does not come cheap: an already prepared iPhone 8 is priced at $1,400-1,500, for example.