The way I see it, it doesn't matter how much bigger the screen is since ages ago MacOS switched to the default behaviour of full screening an app when hitting the green maximize window control.
That default behaviour in combo with the notch feels like a total design misalignment and markedly not Apple.
Edit: I do see what you mean by their design guidelines, but their solution is to fullscreen by not actually using the fullscreen. Again I'm happy with this compromise on the iPhone where the device is physically small but on a full professional device you are essentially telling me that there is an area of a high quality display I cannot use how I want.
Again, the question I would ask you to consider: you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel. Your fullscreen “safe area” app will have more pixels displayed than it did before but instead of a solid bezel you'll have a strip of pure black with a black camera notch in the middle.
Everything which supports the notch (i.e. the system menu, apps which choose the custom display path to display things on either side) can use that extra space to display whatever makes sense (e.g. on many pro apps there'd be no reason not to extend side panels since they're going to be less than half the display width anyway).
In all cases, you have more pixels visible than you did before — it's just a question of how much more — and the primary drawback is that you have an almost imperceptible difference between the black of the camera assembly and the black of a micro-LED display with very high dynamic range. This just doesn't seem like a huge problem to me.
> you previously had a smaller screen with a larger bezel
Just on that topic though, why do I have to compromise to have something close to 3:2 aspect ration on MBP when there are other laptops that do 3:2 with decent webcams and face recognition. Or no facial recognition and super thin bezels.
I'm willing to forgo face recognition for thin bezels. I guess what I was really hoping for was for a 14" version of the XPS15 with an M1 and a close to 3:2 aspect ratio. It feels like we got really close to something great but then compromised at the 5 yard line.
That default behaviour in combo with the notch feels like a total design misalignment and markedly not Apple.
Edit: I do see what you mean by their design guidelines, but their solution is to fullscreen by not actually using the fullscreen. Again I'm happy with this compromise on the iPhone where the device is physically small but on a full professional device you are essentially telling me that there is an area of a high quality display I cannot use how I want.