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.