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When a developer here on XDA is credited as having helped with not just one, but two Jelly Bean ports for the hottest devices on the market, people start to notice. XDA Senior Member randomblame has not only succeeded in doing that, but also in making his own port for the Acer Iconia A500, leading it to claiming the title of first non-Nexus tablet to have Jelly Bean.
As the number of Android devices that are getting official ICS updates continues to grow, the number of devices getting unofficial ICS is growing even faster. With AOSP ROMs making their way around at a healthy rate and leaks flooding the forums, users practically everywhere are getting their shot at some new firmware goodness. This time around, the Acer Iconia A500 receives its share.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: touch-based recoveries are the future. Aside from giving end users easier access to device firmware modification, they add a much needed element of polish to the Android hacking experience. While some may say that these upgrade recoveries take away from the feelings of thrill and excitement, I argue that they offer a more efficient interface and enable some truly unique new features not available in the recoveries of yesteryear.
A negative side effect of flashing a new firmware is that there's always the possibility that you break root, re-lock your bootloader, and lose your custom recovery. Unfortunately, it often takes a considerable amount of time to get root for the new firmware, which means you could very well be stuck until you find a way to downgrade or a new root method is presented. XDA Senior Member jm77 wishes to fix with for Acer Iconia A500 owners with a comprehensive guide on how to get their bootloaders unlocked, restore their custom recoveries, and obtain root once again.
You may remember last week when we reported that the Acer Iconia Tab A200 was receiving its first taste of Ice Cream Sandwich thanks to an over-the-air update. It was speculated then that the Iconia Tab A500 would be the next Acer device to get an update due to the similarities in hardware with the A200. XDA Senior Member vache, the same A500 owner that managed to boot the A200 update, has provided a leaked copy of the previously promised A500 update in our forums and he reports that it works fine.
Merely days after its release earlier this month, Acer's Iconia A500 Android Honeycomb tablet has been rooted! The tablet, which features a unique Acer UI skin, front and back facing cameras, and a 1GHz dual-core Tegra2 processor, will now allow superuser permissions as a result of some clever work from XDA member monki-magic (original post here)