I wholeheartedly agree with the author here, but I also think Apple is even worse in some regards. Ever since iOS 7 I don't even trust their UI guidelines anymore. Look at this picture of the Music app on my iPhone: http://imgur.com/6ADrt9U
What does the text on the bottom mean? Oh you can't read it? Yeah it's Chinese. These are the "buttons" for Repeat, Shuffle, etc. I have no idea what kind of designer thought it was wise to use text instead of icons there, especially since most icons in a music player are easily recognized most of the time.
It all started with this "trend" to go flat, now I can't even see what are supposed to be buttons and what not.