He is simply listing the challenges any designer would face to make a simple yet obvious feature that just works. It is NOT describing a reason to "go back to buttons" or do something in the traditional way. This is where home electronics need to go - where you can interact with them directly instead through some button interface. If I direct my phone at the TV, both the phone and the TV should know that this is happening and depending on context, do something or offer a choice. Another example is touching your phone to your computer, etc.

The challenge, apart from making the design intuitive, is for the devices that take part in this form of interaction to understand the intent of the user.