I think a Likert scale is actually different than how they're surveying respondents in the article linked by the OP.

From Wikipedia: "A Likert item is simply a statement that the respondent is asked to evaluate by giving it a quantitative value on any kind of subjective or objective dimension, with level of agreement/disagreement being the dimension most commonly used...

The format of a typical five-level Likert item, for example, could be:

Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree"

This is much different than "Give a number 1-5 to iPhone."