I get the author's point, but he has decided that frosted effects have gone out of fashion and uses this as a litmus test for whether or not a platform is in decline.

The crux of this argument is that "pointless" features are a result of stalled innovation. I'm sure if the author was to look more closely at his Android phone he would see a great number of pointless features; especially in OEM skins like Touchwiz.

If the author was trying to convince me that Android is a superior platform when it comes to innovation (which it may well be) then he has failed to provided any evidence other than "because frosted effects".