That change happened because App Store's management was transferred from Eddy Cue over to Phil Schiller. While Eddy Cue was completely deaf to developers' complaints and needs, Schiller seems to be giving a damn and he's trying to improve things. They now employ ML/algorithmic means to test submitted apps and catch simple rejection issues. I'm also pretty sure that if you have a pretty good record of submissions & approvals, they spend less time scrutinizing your app. And if you're just issuing fixes or simple changes, they don't spend any time "human testing" at all.
PS: I've come to a conclusion that whatever Cue runs, it is shit or turns to shit quickly. He's in charge of all the Apple services and they're a complete mess. I hope Cue retires or just transfers his responsibilities to someone who cares about them.
I don't think that everything he touches "is shit or turns to shit quickly". The Apple Online Store, iTunes Music Store, iCloud services, Apple Pay are all great products/servives. He took command over Maps when it was at a terrible stake, and it has improved a lot since.
However, I think iTunes, Apple Music and Siri all have weaknesses. But we can only guess who's fault that is - certainly not Cue's alone.
Also, he is employed by Apple since 1989. He must be doing something right.
Problem is that Apple's services are lagging behind their competition. Issue is that each team at Apple has their own stack. Imagine the amount of overlap that they have! They have hundreds of people who are doing the same work but for different teams. That also explains why Apple's so addicted to AWS/Azure/Google's cloud services.
And Siri's fallen further behind their competition. Don't forget, Siri was the first (major) assistant on the market and Apple had a year or two of head start on their competition. But that advantage quickly evaporated because of Apple's neglect. Siri's creators left and formed Viv because Apple lowered their ambitions and didn't give them the budget they wanted.
That's all Eddy Cue's fault since he's the one who's in charge of these teams. It's as simple as that. And just because he's been at Apple so long doesn't mean he's great at his job. It could as well mean that he's accumulated so much power that he's untouchable.
>How do they differentiate between simple fixes and more substantial changes?
I have no idea how they do it. I'm guessing it could be as simple as relying on App Store submission form information and as complicated as analyzing amount of code changes.
PS: I've come to a conclusion that whatever Cue runs, it is shit or turns to shit quickly. He's in charge of all the Apple services and they're a complete mess. I hope Cue retires or just transfers his responsibilities to someone who cares about them.