Microsoft is taking heat for claiming more user-available disk space on its new ARM-based Windows 8-powered Surface tablet than is really there.

But I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Most companies are lying in their commercials, product pages, and press releases when it comes to how much disk space their gadgets offer users. This isn’t as big a deal for the kind of person who reads Alex Wilhelm at The Next Web. But for my parents, looking to buy a tablet, it is a non-trivial deception.

The deception actually works against the companies that use it: I suggest that many people may consider the larger model if the true size of the smaller model were more apparent.

The link above and what it describes are far more damning than any of Microsoft’s shitty advertising and messaging.

Frederic Lardinois, writing at TechCrunch:

The web app, says Pulse, is “designed for discovery” and while it’s still a very visual experience, Pulse did away with the row layout it uses in its mobile apps. Instead, your list of sources is now on the left and stories appear in a beautiful dynamic grid layout. The design is responsive, so the layout will automatically adapt itself to the size of your browser windows.

I’ve only tried it out for a few minutes, but it’s beautiful and functional, and it’ll be much easier to manage sources on the web than it is on mobile.

I cut a parenthetical in Lardinois’ headline referring to Microsoft’s part in bringing Pulse to the web. The end result certainly does look great for touchscreen devices generally, and like it fits right into the Windows 8 design aesthetic specifically.