Apple's first iPhone XS ad is a grand illusion, or is it a deception?

I watched it once. I watched it twice.

I enlarged the screen on my laptop. And then, during a rousing NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was on my relatively big LG TV screen.

I was entertained, of course.

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The music was sultry, the phones looked gorgeous. Apple was playing with illusion as you initially think the phones are the same size, then they're magically not.

Somehow, though, I felt an odd feeling just below my throat. This was Apple's first ad for the iPhone XS and the XS Max, and I couldn't see the most iconic element.

No, not the Apple logo. That's just a signature these days.

What bothered me is that I couldn't see the notch. Both the XS and the XS Max still have it.

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The camera-housing element, initially decried as being the ugliest thing Apple had created since, oh, its pursuit of the man who found an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar, was being artfully concealed.

When iPhone X launched, Apple boasted that it was "all screen." It was, just as much as Congress is all work and no play, indecision, venality, and cynicism.

With this iPhone XS ad, both the screens on the phones have a lovely image that happens to include darkness over the notch area.

This is to create the illusion -- again -- that these phones really do have a gloriously full screen.

But they don't. And it really is OK.

Customers of the X really haven't complained about the notch.

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Instead, Android manufacturers have busily copied it in the hope that at least some phone users will think their notch is better than Apple's.

So, please, Apple, don't be shy about your pimple. It's a beauty spot.

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MORE FROM THE IPHONE XS EVENT:

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• Apple's iPhone XS Max price tops out at $1,449 -- and 8 other keynote takeaways
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• iPhone XR? What kind of name is that?
• Apple iPhone XS event: By the numbers
• Apple details new immersive AR experiences coming in ARKit 2
• iPhone XS: I'm definitely buying Apple's new phone and here's why
• iPhone XS: Here's the one reason I won't buy Apple's new phone
• Apple Watch Series 4 launches, doubles down on digital health and wellness