As odd as the new design feels, Apple already owns this design, this buckle, this asymmetry.
Edit: Why the downvotes (just wondering)?
It wouldn't be the worst if Apple made it that iOS scaled everything so media wasn't blocked by the notch but instead if I get the iPhone X I have to wait for app developers to fix the issue. Seems like a poor decision.
It is the only design that makes sense. The other manufacturers just put a bar down the bottom that has no purpose at all. No one cares about a notch. Obsessive personalities are just fixating on it.
A lot of work went into the notch, I doubt that Mr Ive et al. thought the marketing angle first but you are right, the biggest thing about the notch is people 'bikeshed' over it and talk about it. It gets noticed. And yes it does identify you as having the latest model. That takes you into the marketing that Apple is 50% about (with tech being the other 50% in how Steve Jobs did products).
Although we no longer have Steve Jobs at the helm his vision lives on in the team that he built.
And because this screen has such a wide aspect ratio, in most cases you can zoom out and only have black bars on the notch side and opposite side (left & right when in landscape mode).
That being said, I do find the designs that “embrace the notch” (especially in landscape) repulsive. I’d much prefer if that area just stayed dark to blend in with the notch.
I do like the fact that they managed to restrain themselves from abusing the rounded edges for display, that was something I always hated about the Samsung Edge family.
For what it's worth, the iPhone X doesnt have a 16:9 display, so by default video displays pillar-boxed. Just like on iPad (which also doesnt have a 16:9 display), if you zoom in on the video you can make it occupy the full display, but cutting off a portion of the video.
The iphone had an instantly recognisable silhouette for 10 years: symmetrical forehead & chin, with a big round home button. Going to very thin bezels necessarily throws this trademark away. Making lemonade, as it were, they've chosen to embrace the notch to create a new trademark.
Only the app developers who don't follow the guidelines:
"Don't attempt to hide the device's rounded corners, sensor housing, or indicator for accessing the Home screen by placing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. "
https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/o...
Take for example when the iPhone 6 and 6+ first came out. It took my banking app until the 6s came out to finally update their app to fill the screen. Now granted those apps weren't unusable, they just looked wrong. On the iPhone X with the notch there is a very real possibility that until they are updated they may have unusable functionality.