Updated App Store review guidelines cover HealthKit, HomeKit, TestFlight and creepy apps

Ahead of the fall launch of iOS 8, Apple has updated its App Store review guidelines to include guidance on new features such as extensions, HealthKit, HomeKit and TestFlight. These guidelines detail how developers may use these new features provided in iOS 8. Any app that violates these guidelines may be rejected during the review process.

The guidelines are detailed and pertain primarily to developers, but Apple has provided a short list of general principles, including a provision for "creepy" apps that will receive an immediate ban hammer. The broader themes for acceptance into the App Store are as follows:

• We have lots of kids downloading lots of Apps. Parental controls work great to protect kids, but you have to do your part too. So know that we're keeping an eye out for the kids.

• We have over a million Apps in the App Store. If your App doesn't do something useful, unique, or provide some form of lasting entertainment, or if your app is plain creepy, it may not be accepted.

• If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you're trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.

• We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, "I'll know it when I see it". And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.

• If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.

• If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal data from users, copy another developer's work, or manipulate the ratings) your Apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the developer program.

• This is a living document, and new Apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your App will trigger this.

Additional details on the guidelines are available on Apple's developer website.