For my daughter's recent birthday, I did a hand-me-down of my Nexus 7 to her, along with a new (pink) case. She's thrilled, of course, but I'm currently without a tablet. I had to make this call prior to Google I/O, and now we learn that there isn't a Nexus 7++ to be announced.

Option 1: pony up for another Nexus 7, using this opportunity to upgrade from my earlier (and insufficient) 16GB to a new 32GB model. I don't think I need the cellular support, since I can always slave it to my phone.

Option 2: wait for whatever's coming next. It's been a year since the Nexus 7 was announced. There will presumably be a new one, presumably with a higher-resolution screen, if nothing else particularly novel.

Meanwhile, for my next business trip, I'm dusting off my old 2nd-gen Kindle, which can read books just fine, even though it doesn't do much of anything else. (With the Nexus 7, I'll download and transcode a bunch of shows from my TiVo to watch while I'm away.)

Good question. It sure seemed like, of all the rumors going into Google IO, a new N7 was most likely. I feel like it was a foregone conclusion.

Here's one silly theory: Google really wanted to get a ton of Pixels out there, but they couldn't afford give out anything in addition, so they decided not to release the N7 at Google IO, otherwise there would be pressure to give it away too.