The parent of you wasn't confused; he was arguing that the reason for doing it is to have a thinner bezel, and that is a purely cosmetic reason. So, the iPhone and Essential notches are cosmetic.
I agree with him, I found the use of the term in the article to be bizarre. When he claimed the notches were "purely cosmetic" I read ahead, excited to read something silly; like that the notches didn't house anything, or they were actually just a piece of plastic extending over the screen.
Instead, his argument seemed to be, that if you have a notch, but otherwise design your phone differently from Apple, you're ripping off Apple and doing it for cosmetics. I'm pretty sure if they had gone ahead and done everything the same as the iPhone, he would have written a slightly different article, where he was just as annoyed.
yes but isn't that what the asus phone is doing as well? they've trimmed the bezels by forcing the camera onto the screen surface. the ulefone looks to have a chin but was able to get rid of the head. the huawei device looks to be the most egregious chin but again, the top of the phone is pretty thin.
so seems like these phones are copying the design for having a thinner top bezel.
Isn't that what I just said - that it wasn't cosmetic and it was a necessary compromise. If they wanted to maximize both functionality and screen size?