Pictures of the next Nexus 7 appear ahead of July 24 Google event

An entire year has passed since the launch of the original Nexus 7. We expected a successor to be announced before this year’s Google I/O, and potential specifications have been floating around for longer than that. Imagine our disappointment then, when Google I/O’s opening day keynote eschewed new hardware (and the Android version bump that customarily comes with new hardware) in favor of a series of impressive but smaller updates to many of Android’s services and APIs. Hope springs eternal, though.