Who is "a lot of people", and "most Mac users" and "a lot of 11.6"" for that matter? If you're a student, you should know that such vague arguments don't contribute to making a point. Do you actually have a MBA 11.6"?
I am (a) a 20 years Mac user who hides the dock at the bottom and uses that extra space and (b) a student who uses two windows side by side on the MBA 11.6" (LaTeX).
Stop being so defensive and childish. There are better ways to express your opinion or be heard. There was nothing wrong with what I said; it was not some logical flaw. The arguments were not "vague". I did not forget to put 'in my opinion' 'from my experiences' 'from what i have seen' or list out every experience I have had with some one using OSX or a computer. Some sentences are obviously opinion based on experience and observations. Did you really need an explanation of my post? Did I really need to tell you that these were observations? My post was not offensive nor did I attack any one. You can clearly see which users on the forums are adults and which are children by how they post. Saying that most people like vertical space or used up a lot of vertical space had three people write immature posts. You can disagree, you can explain, but the three posts in this thread were inappropriate.
You may use side-by-side on an 11.6" screen. But for lots of people there is not enough resolution nor enough size to make that comfortable. Even on an external monitor it is uncomfortable for some(no I cannot tell you which people specifically or give you data). From my experience, in my opinion, from what I have seen when people use computers, most people would not be able to use side-by-side well on an 11.6" screen despite the above average resolution. There are times when you do not need a lot of information and the resolution is enough to hold it, but most of the time you will have to scroll a lot and that may not be the best option. You will see people switching which window is on top.
What reason can you give for having the dock on the side of an MBA 11.6"? (Please do not ask for data showing this.)
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Most mac users... hmmm.
Hmm.... Can you show me a data that proves this?
I do not have data on how people use their space on OSX. I can only guess that your somewhat useless post was to say you disagreed with me. What aspect ratio would you have if you had to choose? Would you choose a 2.35:1 11.6" screen? 16:10 or 16:9? Personally given the footprints I would choose 16:9, and that is why apple choose to use 16:9 on the 11.6" instead of the 16:10 on their other macbooks. If they felt 16:9 was superior they would have pushed it into some of their other models.
Go look at how most people use their OSX and macbooks specifically or take a better look at how you use your operating systems. Liking vertical space is not a bad thing, using vertical space is not a bad thing. Most macbooks are 16:10, in fact all of them except for the 11.6" air.
PC has been shifting more towards 16:9 for a long time now for various reasons. There have been lots of people complaining about this. They argue that they need vertical space for documents, code and webpages. Personally its not that big of a change. The majority of changes to 16:9 were because it was cheaper.
