Update

[October 6th]:

A fair number of people on Twitter had different experiences with the 2013 Nexus 7 tablet, so I tried again.

The Nexus updated itself to Android 4.3.

Android 4.3 seems to have addressed some of these issues. The WiFi is now reliable and the key presses are more accurate.

The unit runs warm but not hot around the camera, so I can hold it for long enough to read Twitter.

So, my revised conclusion is that the Nexus 7 2013 is a reasonable successor to the 2012 Nexus 7. It's lighter.

But the out of box experience is really important. I had a very bad out of box experience that, luckily, could be addressed mostly with software.

Sadly, Google does not get that a lot of the phases of the experience are important. Apple does get that.

So, I'll keep buying toys in some vain hope that someone manages to do well enough with the whole experience that I can stop using Apple. But today, I'm using Apple: iPad and MacBook Pro/Air.

Got a Free Nexus 7

I attended the most excellent Monktoberfest and wound up winning the latest generation Google Nexus 7.

I use an HTC One phone, have used a Nexus 4 phone, and generally have been using Android on and off since the G1 back in the day.

I am ambivalent about Android. For GMail and Calendar, it's the best thing around. For most apps, it's not. And there's really no good Twitter client (I need Tweet Marker to keep my twitter clients in sync and neither Plume [sucks beyond belief] nor TweetCaster is anywhere near Tweetbot). Outside the Google apps, the only app on Android that's nailed the "this just feels right" place is Pocket.

I still use an iPad mini for every day stuff and use my first generation Nexus 7 to play music in my work area (the Google Play Music service is my favorite).

The New Nexus 7 Is Junk

So, I unboxed the new Nexus 7, updated the software, loaded a bunch of stuff I've already bought onto it.

And it sucks.

I mean it sucks really badly.

I mean, what could Google possibly be thinking when they released the new Nexus 7.

The WiFi drops, a lot.

The unit runs hot (not warm like the iPad Retina) near the camera. So hot, that it's uncomfortable to hold.

The screen doesn't get the hits correctly. I'm constantly mis-typing letters and sometimes the touches simply are not registered.

So, the Nexus 7 is going in its box and going on a shelf with my ThinkPad Helix.

I'll stick with my iPad mini. Apple got it really, really right with the mini. Even if iOS 7 is a few steps back and a few steps goofy.