This is a pretty top level description of the problem. I've not dug very deep, but what I've observed is that when deployed against an AWS instance set up per the instructions at:
The device is booted shortly after connecting and subscribing to topics.
With a 1.6.0 build, it works as expected.
It looks to me like the instructions for AWS have not been updated for the 1.7.0 SDK. Is this the case, and if so, are updated instructions forthcoming?