Is development with Google Maps possible on an Archos 101 tablet

I am working on a project which requires the use of Google Maps and is aimed for tablet PCs running the Android OS. We have purchased an Archos 101 Internet Tablet to test our implementation, but what I have quickly noticed is that any application that I install which uses Google Maps immediately crashes on startup (throwing a ClassNotFoundException on the class which extends MapActivity). I then learned that Archos is not a "Google-certified" device and apparently does not support the Google Maps API.

I understand that we may need to acquire a Tablet which is confirmed to work with Google APIs for Android.

I wanted to know if anyone has ever tried to develop a Google Maps application on one of these tablets?

As a follow up, what tablet would you suggest for developing a Google Maps application?

EDIT: I have tested the same implementation successfully on both the Android Emulator and a Nexus On开发者_JAVA百科e phone. I want to stress that the issue seems to be the lack of support for Google Maps on the Archos 101 tablet. Also, this is just a prototype, and we are not developing anything for the market quite yet, so the workaround is acceptable in this case.

I wanted to know if anyone has ever tried to develop a Google Maps application on one of these tablets?

ARCHOS tablets do not have Google Maps, and so you cannot develop apps that use the Google Maps add-on using those tablets. You can, however, display classic Web-based Google Maps in a WebView or something.

As a follow up, what tablet would you suggest for developing a Google Maps application?

Any tablet that legitimately has Google Maps and the Android Market. If you have an Android Market developer account, if the device shows up in the filter-out-these-devices list, then it legitimately has the Android Market.

I'd seriously consider a Honeycomb tablet, as that will be the OS flavor that most tablet devices will be running in the future.

Despite all the research I had been doing pointing to the conclusion that this was impossible, my peers persisted, and I did end up finding a workaround that I thought I should share.

I found a package which installs the necessary components onto the Archos for it to support Google Apps functionality. The version I used can be downloaded here.

After installing the apk using adb install, I ran the app and clicked "Install only core apps". After rebooting, I tried to run my Google Maps program again, and it worked.

EDIT: This "workaround" may no longer be valid as the link to the package has been taken down. Try searching Google Apps Installer for Android (version number).