Email response from Jerry Adriano (Sprint's VP of Customer Experience)

[TC1]

Originally Posted by answerman

Just to see if it would work any better with an Alltel 6800, I gave it a try. I'm stuck at the *.jar install with the message "The suite Mobile GMaps cannot be installed because the permission com.qualcomm.qjae.gps.Gps is not available on this device -58". I assume that this is the error relating to the locked API since it doesn't have root access. Is this the same issue that you ran into on the Mogul?

Exactly.

So what's happening here is that either the API is locked down... or it doesn't exist at all (yet). Sometimes error messages can be deceiving, the permission issue could also be there's nothing there to access. The fact that Sprint themselves are not charging for location based services on the phone themselves leads me to believe that it's just not possible (yet).

Thanks to everyone that tried this out, you folks are the best At least I can take a rest from trying to crack this nut until Sprint/HTC release the next ROM.