The Nexus 7, everyone's newest favorite tablet, has already had more than its share of problems shipping from the Play Store. Today, the new shenanigans are that the 16GB model is currently unavailable from the Play Store at all. The best Google has to offer is a "coming soon" button that offers to let customers sign up to be informed when the device comes back in stock.

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The 16GB model, so far, has been particularly hard to find from Google, and particularly easy in retail locations. The best we can assume is that Google allotted more 16GB models to be shipped out for retail shipment, since the margins are higher on the 16GB model. On the 8GB model, the cost of shipping doesn't factor in to the already razor-thin margins, since that gets paid by the end user. Of course, this is just idle speculation.

The takeaway, regardless, is that if you want a 16GB model of this device and you haven't already pre-ordered it, head to a retail location to pick yours up. The $25 Play Store credit is tied to the device, not ordering through the Play Store, so you don't have to worry about missing out on that.

More broadly, as we discussed this week on the podcast, this is really Google's first foray into major, hotly-anticipated, launch-day distribution via the Play Store. Google has sold devices before, but this marks the first one that has sold incredibly well and has been available on day one (the Galaxy Nexus, for example, wasn't available via Google until months after its launch). So, hopefully Google will learn some lessons about how to approach product distribution in the future.

Source: Play Store