Just like the smaller sibling in the A100 it appears that Acer has flipped the switch and is rolling out the update to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich for their Tegra 2 powered Iconia Tab A500 too. The update was originally stated to start on Friday, April 27th but it apparently is available now and rolling out to users in the US and Canada.

Acer originally announced the updates for their tablets, then delayed them until April stating the 27th was the day. The Ice Cream Sandwich were actually leaked back in February but weren’t anywhere near final builds. The official update from Acer themselves is available today so get to checking.

We are hearing a few reports that the ICS update for the A100 has made a few apps not work the same, and some apps are crashing but nothing specific was mentioned. Users should be greeted with a small update after the ICS update too, that apparently fixes a small bug. As usual you can wait for the update or pull it to your tablet right this minute by going to menu > settings > about tablet and check for updates to enjoy the frozen Ice Cream Sandwich tonight. Let us know how it goes and if you experience any issues.

— Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

[device id=266]

213 COMMENTS

    •  this is the official release. I’m hearing it’s only a few small apps and nothing major. Might wanna head to XDA for more details. I’ll look into it too and update tomorrow

  3. i checked just a few minues ago and i do not have the update yet. I hope will be avaialable tomorrow gooo Aceerrr

  15. Played Angry Birds Space and a few others so far so good. It seems smoother when scrolling between screens and everything seems more responsive. ive only had my a100 about two weeks and just got used to 3.2 but it doesnt seem to different as far as how its navagated compared to the difference between say 2.3 and 3.2.

  23. Mine just started a short time ago. It’s installing now!
    The toolbar looks a little different.
    My circuit simulator still functions (need that for work).
    So far, so good! 🙂

  36. I’m in Alabama, got my update a few hours ago, I don’t see what the big deal about this update is, anybody care to elaborate ?

    • New look, better font engine/autocorrect, speed, multi-tasking (swipe to close), voice recognition, ability to take screen shots, widget flexibility, more stable overall (hopefully acer didn’t screw this up) to name a few.

  38. Toronto, Canada, no updates yet 10:15am.
    Question: Will I be able to go back to Honeycomb?
    I know right now I have 3.2.1 but if I do factory reset, I can go back to 3.0 and then re-upgrade:
    3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.2 -> 3.2.1

    • No if you do a factory reset alot of people are saying it resets to ICS not Honeycomb. But once you do a reset all the glitches stop from the ics update but you looses all you data. Better do a backup first

  40. Just did the update. Totally screwed up the tab unfortunately. It would work for 30 seconds and shut down, over and over and over again. Tried a hard reset (Power + Volume Up + Screen lock) with no luck. I finally got to the Factory Restore setting before it shut down, and wiped it clean. Fired back up and it still has ICS. Has been working perfectly since (or at least it isn’t shutting down every 30 seconds) I’m guessing one of my apps or widgets or something was making it do it, I’d recommend backing everything up before doing the update.

  41. Just got it at 9:15 local time in Minnesota. The ring hub is mia sadly. Any news when that may come out? Looks nice otherwise. Screen is super responsive and I am loving the new keyboard. I don’t know what they did to change it but it is significantly more useable. The menu changes have me a little confused. It is like having to re-explore my tablet. I’m looking forward to getting the ring and seeing what that opens up. Overall very satisfied.

    P.s. this is being posted from my android 4 a500 🙂

  44. Sudbury, Ontario.  Updated the “Acer Iconia Update Enhancer” as stated below and system update picked up the new update. Downloading now.

  46. It seems those with the a100 have to wait while those with the a500 can install when they want once they update their iconia update enhancement.  

  48. Unable to update to ICS, updated the “Iconia Update Enhancement” as soon as it came out. My ‘System Update’ attempts always come back as ‘Your device is up to date’. Any suggestions?

  50. ICS became available around 3:00 AM here in Philadelphia, Pa. I waited until 11:00 AM to install because I never would have gotten to sleep. So far, so good.
    The first thing I noticed was speed. Everything seems to be working a little faster and smoother. There are minor UI changes. The settings menu is a little more detailed.
    I’m not sure if the absence of the ‘rings’ was Acer’s choice, but you can’t miss what you never had.
    The KOBO, nook, and Kindle reading apps all work fine. Plume twitter app, and Pulse news feed app, YouTube and Netflix apps are all working well.   
    My biggest question has to do with screen capture. I read somewhere that Ice Cream Sandwich would have a Screen Capture feature. Apparently, Acer’s ICS update has no such feature.
    If anyone knows how to capture a screen shot with their Acer A500, without rooting, please share.

    • *NOTE- Just found out how to capture a screen shot.
      Press the ‘Volume Down’ button (Vol -) AND the Power Button at the same time until you hear a notification sound. Image will be saved.
      **image below is screen shot taken of the open Pulse news feed app.

  51. I have problems, every time I put it in stand by, if I don’t use it again in 1 hour, it doesn’t wake up, I have to turn it on again, anyone know what to do? Thanks.

  56. Kept getting the system is up to date message until I did Google Play update to the 
    Iconia Tab Update Enhancement.  After I updated it found the update and I’m downloading now.

  57. In Calgary, and I kept trying with no success, even tried rebooting and uninstalling/reinstalling the update enhancement – nada.

    • I have the update installed and up to date on mine and 7 friends in the Windsor Canada area and still no update…Acer said it’s a regional update and depending on your area you will get it within a week.

  58. NOT SEEING THE UPDATE?
    California – Using SETTINGS – ABOUT TABLET – SYSTEM UPDATE, I kept getting notification that the tablet was up to date.  However, when I went into Google Play, I saw an update for ICONIA TAB – Update Enhancement.  Downloaded it and tried “System Update”  It’s downloading as we speak.

    • Update enhancement is only for a500. It was not made for the a100 because its already onboard.

      Looking at the a100 and a500 articles and boards, more 500 are getting the update first.

    • I have the update installed and up to date on mine and 7 friends in the Windsor Canada area and still no update…Acer said it’s a regional update and depending on your area you will get it within a week. 

  62. No update for me either until I went to Google Play and downloaded the Acer Update Enhancer. I went back into Settings on the A500 and checked for update and  I was able to start the update. It is updating now. Thanks to those who posted this idea earlier.

  65. this is my conversation with the acer chat:

    Priya S: Hi, my name is Priya S. How may I help you? stephen ko: hi there, is the scheduled released date for ICS for A500 on April 27th for Canada? Priya S: I understand your concern. I will help you. Priya S: The tablet you care using is A500 Am I correct? stephen ko: yes Priya S: The ICS has been released. Priya S: You will be getting updated within a week. stephen ko: within a week?? shouldn’t i get it on april 27th? Priya S: Acer releases Android Operating System updates in batches. These batches will roll out over the period of about one week, at which point the update will have been made available to everyone.

  66. Montreal:
    I installed update enhancement.  Still nothing…
    I wonder if it depends on the google account set up, gmail address etc.
    Perhaps the update is being rolled out based ont those settings. 

  69. just got the update here on east coast…. Having issues like others.  A500 keeps restarting unless I shut down wifi.  Had to do factory reset.  ICS still loaded but all data is lost.  restoring apps from backup.

  72. You need to update the acer system update in Google play before you get the update.  Especially if you’re tablet is claiming no update is avalible.  Do it!

  81. Here in Ottawa, Canada I was able to download and install this morning at 1 am. So far overall notice slight speed increase especially on boot. Unable to perform screen capture and ended up powering off a few times (hence the reason I know boot seems quicker). Swype complains of being wrong screen size on first use.

    Currently using Google Chrome beta and liking how it remembers last used pages through power recycle.

    •  How did you do it?  I’ve been checking the updates and nothing, and I even have the enhancement from Google Play and still nothing..

      • I simply checked for update while watching the Nashville Phoenix game last night and there it was. Ended up staying up until much later than planned once I started.:-)

  84. Did the up date now my screen won’t orientate. Have to turn on and off if I want screen to go from portriate to land scape. Any idea how to fix?.

    • I know that’s the exact way I tried it and says no update.  Wonder how they are sending this update out.  It’s seems to be very random.

  91. Got the update and since then I have been having lots of problems. Apps are unstable (the flash rapidly and then crash), including Gmail. I have tried to use the new folder option, but here also, suddenly the folders start to flash before the whole thing crashes leaving only the wallpaper and not option to restart the whole tablet.

    Acer did a pretty bad job and their version of ICS is not mature and should have not been released. And the changes are minimal. If you can avoid an update… I suggest you do!!! Really not worth it and extremely aggravating. Plus Acer is not very helpful up to now.

    Don’t install it… it will screw your Tablet!

    • Perhaps there’s some issue with an installed app. I’ve been using ICS on and off today trying out different apps with relatively few problems. The email app was messed up to start with but after clearing the cache for that app and a reboot all is now OK. I have 4 synced accounts and they were all slow to refresh or not at all for some.

      No crashes so far and no problem creating or using the new folders.

  92. Acer releases Android Operating System updates in batches. These batches will roll out over the period of about one week, at which point the update will have been made available to everyone.

  93. Chatted with Acer.  The roll-out batches are based on serial number (SNID) of your unit.  I recommended that they post SNID-range versus date to avoid a lot of calls/chats come Monday. 🙂

  94. when I hit system update I have a message: “Network coverage is currently poor. Please move to a location with better coverage to continue”. My wifi has excellent signal I dont know what is going on. I did factory reset as suggested on some blogs but the problem still persist when

    • Well, after I did the factory reset, I read on other blog that it might be caused by Acer’s server overload. So for now do not factory reset your devices, I did and lost all the data lol

  98. Montreal Canada, and still no update on A500 gen1. Well they said that everyone will have the update within a week … so let’s just wait.

  99. HELP!!!!!!!!
    I want do update my Acer Iconia tablet tab a500 to ICS 4.0, yesterday was downloading in my tablet so that indicated to me but I could not download it because I had to go and was in a public place, leaving half the discharge. Today it doesn’t tells me I should do an update as it always does when one is available and when I go to the option to search for available updates tells me that network coverage is poor at this time trasladece to a place with better coverage to continue, although WiFi signal is at maximum it say this, sometimes I’ve done updates with lower signal of which I have now and had never said that before. What should I do?

  101. Right, my message has changed from ‘Your device is up to date’ to ‘Network coverage is poor’. I’m thinking that means Acer is overloaded, coz there ain’t nothin’ wrong with my wifi. If not, this tablet is making defamatory comments about my setup. Australia.

    • Similar issue here. Yesterday morning i could get the update but waited until i backed up my tablet and removed sd card then tried to update and got the same poor network coverage error when i was sitting a few feet from my router and had full signal strength. I’m willin to wait though as the there seems to be about a 50/50 split with people having issues and not.

      • Yeah, I went to the Acer website earlier and started to download Acer Sync. It was coming down at 5k a second and had an estimated time of 6 hours. I think there might be a bit of competition for bandwidth over there. If, on the other hand, there’s something glitched telling my Iconia that wifi coverage is poor when it’s not – that’s a different story.

    • Mine came last Saturday in the UK so if you still don’t have it you might need to reset your tab or something. 🙂

  103. Got my update on the 27th, my tablet is running very slow ever since. Any idea how to troubleshoot this? Btw, initially screen orentation didn’t work either.

    •  I got the update on the 27th and it appears that my tablet is faster and more stable since.  As soon as the update completed, about 1/2 a dozen apps updated (but I don’t have nearly the number that people say they do, nowhere near 100+).

      The GPS is even working without my having to root and hack a file to tell it what satellites to to look for.

      I have an Acer Iconia Tab A500 32 GB that I bought, reconditioned, about 2 months ago.

  104. The “Network coverage is currently poor. Please move to a location with better coverage to continue” has nothing to do with your Wi-Fi connection.  What it really means is that your tablet cannot resolve the DNS name checkin.acer.futuredial.com.  This is the address that your tablet looks up to determine if there is an update available or not.  For me at least, this address is currently unresolvable, or more specifically, it says that it is non-existent, which isn’t exactly correct, but it is how my ISP’s DNS server sees it.  

    You can check how your computer (and by extension any other device on your network, like your tablet) resolves this name by opening a command prompt/terminal and typing “nslookup checkin.acer.futuredial.com”, without the quotes.  If the address is resolvable, you will get a Non-authoritative answer with a list of one or more IP addresses, if, like for me right now, it is not, you will get an error stating such.

    My guess is, to lighten the load on their servers, Acer has somehow geo fenced this address and will probably be opening it up on a regional basis.

  105. it woukd have been very simple to release the update by city, province, state… or different time zones, if people knew when they could receive it and only a certain area is alound to actually download at that time then people would be flocking to their iconias to hit that update button, that way alot of people could get it quickly and not jam servers based on how many iconias were purchased in those areas up to date. instead of making everyone run to the message boards and demanding anwsers that we clearly wont have until its all said and done and no more people receive the update.

    owner of an
    iconia a500 &
    acer all in one

  108. Just completed my update, no real issues yet. Need to go thru all my apps and see if there are any problems. Boots in about 1/4 the time that it used to:-).

  109. Received ICS about 6 hours ago….working fine so far, only couple apps not working out of +-150. And its not any important apps (games).

  110. After update a500 cant turn on from sleep after 10 or more minutes. Rebooting is needed. Battery is drained out also. Do not upgreade to ICS.

  111. Just got off the phone w/  L2 Acer Tech.. He said the ‘not updating’/’network coverage’ issue is w/ Taiwan servers and should be resolved by midnight tonight… we’ll see.

    • It seems that Acer is unable to do it right and now making all the excuses about issues with servers. Btw do you mean midnight in Taiwan or wherever you are located

    • Same here. I think I’ll just wait until I get the pop up telling me to update. I was excited for this, now I’m just over it.

  113. Canada (Montreal)… nothing yet. Am still being told I am up to date… yeah right.

    Why can’t Acer provide a link to a page where the update can be downloaded?

  116. since updating, my Tablet continually resets every minute or so. It is also not connecting to my WIFI anymore.  Anyone find a solution to fixing this?

  117. all thats looking for a download look here

     http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1113878 

    it worked for me no problems

    australia aswell so good luck

    • Worked for me too, my tablet is now running 4.0.3. All working perfectly so far. Thanks Vicdun for the link.
      By the way : a500 gen1 in Montreal 😉

      • I’m fully upgraded using these instructions. Beats waiting on Acer. Hassle free so far. Western Australia.

  119. The “by midnight” fix came & went and still no ICS. Acer level 2 repair now said they don’t know when. It seems that most of Canada got an upgrade, not me in Vancouver. Guess I’ll D/L a leaked ROM…

  121. Still nothing in Windsor.  but from what I’m reading in this thread, it goes by serial number or something like that.  Hopefully Acer will get everything figured out soon.

  122. I got the update on my Acer iconia a500 a few days ago but since that time I haven’t been able to use the flash. When I try to open anything requiring flash I get a message at the adobe site that flash will be available soon. Not good. I had flash before the system upgrade and now I don’t have it.

    •  Flash was included with the Homeycomb 3.x ROM but has been removed from the ICS 4.x ROM.  No need to worry though, if you open the Play Store (aka: Market) and do a search for flash you will find Adobe Flash Player 11.  Install this app and all will be well again in flash land.

      • Hi, I am using flash player 11. I even tried to figure out how to uninstall it to reinstall but I don’t know how 🙁

      •  If you do as I suggested above, open the Play Store and do a search for flash, when you find and select Adobe Flash Player 11, if it is already installed there will be an uninstall button instead of an install button. 

  126. ics came through, but it killed the wifi. there are a lot people complaining but no fix yet besides backing up apps and doing a hard reset.

    • Just got the update in Windsor ON. 7 of us got it at the same time so it should be coming to you soon. Make sure you have the Acer Enhancement downloaded from the Play store. Good Luck 🙂 

  128. it has been a week now and still no update for UK, what the hell is going on?!! very disappointed

  129. I have had ics for a week now and for the most part everything works fine. Occasionally when i boot it does not connect to the wireless network until i goto settings and tell it to connect then everything is fine. My tablet wallpaper app will stop working when surfing thru new backrounds after about 2 to 3 minutes. All of my other apps work fine. No real serious issues to report. I had no screen rotation problems or need to do a hard reset. One or two minor glitches that a future update will probably fix.

  130. My A100 is upping now, FINALLY. But my A500 continues to chug along on 3.2.1. C’mon Acer, there’s no excuse for that !

  131. Just received the update this morning. Everything looks fine, no problems so far… it actually is faster than before… 🙂 Montreal, Canada

    • Montreal as well. The update was there at 6:00 this morning (7 May)… downloaded quickly, installed quickly. Everything seems to be functioning as it should. So far so good.

  134. Acer Iconia updated today, but I cannot find apps and the whole appearance seems to have changed
    Can anyone offer any help or advice please

  136. Heres a trick that helped me get it faster… I tried updating 4 or 5 times and got the “Your device is up to date” message, so finally after poking around on Acer’s website, I found this .apk. Basically it’s the update installer. So download it to your tab, and install it, then click check for updates and it worked right away. Heres the link you want to download “Application.apk” http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?modelId=3851

  138. Got the update done,and looks much nicer,but my acer is much slower in response.longer waiting time when starting up,and some games take up to a minute to load.anybody else has this problem.and is it possible to go back to 3.2

  139. I updated my acer Iconia and it keeps resetting itself? does anyone know how to fix this? I really don’t want to do a hard reset if i can help it!! :/

  140. Can Someone help me, My Acer A500 has problems to access Google Talk, Keeps telling me Connection interupted and thats causing problems with my google play updates please help!!

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