Archos has released or is in the process of releasing five different Internet Tablets, and none of them can access Android Market. The Market could be sideloaded, but it no longer functioned with Archos’ versions of Android 2.x.
But fear not! User m4rk3t at ArchosFans Support Forum has an app that should enable Android Market on your Archos tablet, provided you have firmware release 1.0.70. (If you don’t, you need to fix that before you do anything else.) The gApps4Archos.apk, once sideloaded, should also allow you to use several apps from the Google mobility suite, such as Calendar and Talk. They don’t work perfectly, but they do, for the most part, function despite some funny display issues. You may have to reboot a few times to access Google’s servers.
Warning: Do not install this unless you know what you’re doing. At least one user on ArchosFans managed to brick a device. Make sure you have plenty of room on your Archos, for one thing. And of course, neither ArchosFans, nor Android Headlines, nor any other blog with this information is responsible should you turn your new Archos device into a lovely piece of inert sculpture.
Instructions:
- Ensure you have firmware version 1.0.70. If you don’t, upgrade your device to 1.0.70.
- Put gApps4Archos.apk file on your Archos disk (file available here)
- Install it by selecting this file using the device file manager
- Run the installed package and follow the installation steps
You may wonder why Archos didn’t ship their devices with Android Market and Google apps access. This is an issue with many tablets, not just Archos’ products. Google will be optimizing their new operating systems to work better with tablets, and Froyo didn’t get those improvements. Gingerbread will be here soon enough, and if it can’t support all those high-resolution tablets, Honeycomb will be along next.