Apple has realized that by publishing strict rules, many developers will fight the explicit letter of the law while ignoring the spirit thereof. Ergo, general r

Apple has realized that by publishing strict rules, many developers will fight the explicit letter of the law while ignoring the spirit thereof. Ergo, general rules have been published but the reviewers have great leeway to determine that a submission has missed the obvious point (ex.: a battery-sucking background app should at least inform a user that it will do so). They're not going to explicitly declare exactly what is/isn't allowed to perfect clarity precisely because written language isn't perfectly clear when readers don't want it to be (ex.: USA's Bill Of Rights). Rather than get into ongoing fights over what exact wording should be, Apple understandably opts for a verbose but imperfect description of the point of their limitations, and hires gatekeepers to make sensible per-case decisions on whether an app adheres to the point of the rules. Wording of a rule may sensibly apply in one case but not another, based on culture & context. User experience does not decompose well into precise requirements. If all it takes is a brief disclaimer in a description, and that disclaimer is a fair notification to the user of some behavior that reasonably isn't expected, then put it in and resubmit.