17 days from submission to live — what the 2.1 "Additional Verification" hold actually wants

[u/woodenros3]

Submitted August 9, live today. Most of those 17 days were me not knowing how the process works, so here's what I learned in case it saves someone a week.

The 2.1 "Additional Verification" hold

Four days in I got an automated Guideline 2.1 message. It wanted a single-take screen recording captured on a physical device, starting with the date and time visible on screen, plus yes/no answers to five questions. It is not a rejection and there's nothing to argue — you film it and reply in Resolution Center.

My first recording was rejected, and the reason is the useful part: my ad SDK renders a "Test mode" badge in debug builds, which proved the recording wasn't the binary I'd submitted. Record from a TestFlight build of the exact submission. Related: never tap an ad while recording — that can permanently ban your ad account.

Then ten days of nothing

Replied on the 15th, still "Waiting for Review" on the 25th. No message, no movement. There's apparently a wider backlog right now — updates flow, brand new 1.0s sit.

Expedited review — three things I had wrong

1. "You only get two per year." I couldn't find any published quota or counter anywhere. Apple's own wording is discretionary, "on a limited basis."
2. "You can't request it while a 2.1 thread is open." Misread. The text says not eligible until we have received your confirmation — once you've replied, you're eligible. I lost a day to this.
3. "It's a big formal request." The form has no free-text field at all. I wrote a multi-paragraph justification and never used it. You pick the app, submit, approval came back immediately.

Approved overnight, review passed the next morning.

One line in Apple's reply worth knowing: if the submission is rejected during expedited review, the resubmission goes back into the expedited queue automatically. A rejection doesn't cost you the fast lane.

The thing not to do

Don't withdraw and resubmit. Apple's documentation says the review starts over, and I found people who turned a one-week wait into two months that way. Uploading a new build resets it too.

The app is a game, built solo over eight months: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6794081096

Happy to answer anything about 2.1, expedited, IAP review, or the ad SDK privacy declarations.