Apparently the tenth iPhone came out almost a year ago and came with bat ears:
Apple obsessed over maximizing the screen, but instead of moving the selfish camera to the bottom, next to the home button, they increased the screen on the top left and top right and also got rid of the home button.*
I first heard about this last week, did not care enough to investigate, and eventually happened across an explanation.
If you know Linus of Linus Tech Tips, he said this of the notch: (Starting at 2:33)
So, it is fine if you only want to see 1 - 4 notifications, but do not mind having part of one side of your movie cut out.
*Instead of having a home button, you swipe up from the bottom, just like with my $35 RCA tablet that is absolute garbage.