Ice Cream Sandwich on Acer Iconia A500 / A501

I recently got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus mobile phone, and I am so impressed with it. It was an upgrade from the HTC Evo 3D that I only used for a couple of months. The difference between the two are staggering. Everything on the Nexus is fluid and smooth, and the new upgrades Google did to the UI are working fantastic.

I recently traded a notebook for an Acer Iconia A500 10.1″ tablet. So how are things looking for the Acer Iconia A500?

Downgrade and root

My unit was running Honeycomb 3.2, but a quick look-through at XDA Developers got the unit downgraded from 3.2 to 3.01 (see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1276227). I used method 2 mentioned there, and that was easy. After running Iconiaroot 1.3 and upgrading recovery 1.3 to recovery 1.6 from within the recovery I was ready to rock.

Installing ICS

Currently development of an ICS port for the A500 is dead in the water at the XDA Developers forums, but a user called thor2002ro has a WIP ROM over at Tegraowners (http://forum.tegraowners.com/).

You need to register to get the links for the download, the thread is here: http://forum.tegraowners.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=106

The good news? Everything essential is WORKING. The camera is not working, and if you have the A501 the 3G modem is also not working. But for me the upgrade is really worth it. Thanks a lot for your effort thor2002ro!

Later it has dawned on me that the A500 developers are a fighting bunch, and lots of time is wasted on this on XDA Developers with locked threads and all. I hope this will change, as everyone loses and nobody wins in this situation.

 

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