Windows Phone 7.5 app certification and Bing Maps in China

Today's topic is a gotcha from the real world: if you are submitting your Windows Phone 7.5 application for certication through the Windows Phone developer portal, and you are using the Silverlight Bing Maps control in your application, be advised that your certification will fail if you selected China as your destination market.

Shortly put, for whatever reason, Windows Phone apps in China cannot use the Bing Maps control. If you try to do this, you certification will fail by the rule 3.10, "Country/Region Specific Requirements".

China is the lone country in the "Group 1" countries, in which Bing Maps isn't allowed.

This as a gentle reminder, so that you won't lose five to six days waiting for your app to be certificated, only to note that the certification failed for such a silly reason.