I googled the author's name and from a cursory look at his linkedin he was a toddler in 2003. It’s therefore reasonable to conclude that he has no idea how a phone from 2003 worked. I mean, he could’ve used one for a bit, but definitely not as a daily driver.
I was born in 1980’s and for me what we have currently feels exactly like I live in the future.
Personal computers from 2003 sucked and now I have much more reliable and powerful personal computers in my pocket - as much as I have fond memories of Windows XP I also remember offhand serial key because I was reinstalling it loads of times for friends family and myself. Nowadays I don’t remember having to reinstall an operating system for at least last 10 years or more.
As late as 2011 Nokias like the N8 or N9 were competitive with the iPhones of that time i.e. the iPhone 4. That iPhone is the famous “holding it wrong” phone.
Then Nokia admitted defeat and switched to Windows which failed badly. Symbian was too hard and expensive to maintain and their Linux OS strategy was to redo the OS three times instead of incrementally developing it.
