The article is called How to Live Without Google. If that is your goal, does an iPhone help with that or not? That doesn't mean it is the only way. Of course you can go without a phone, use a dumbphone, or use Android without Google if you manage to get it to work.

As to why one would want to live without Google, there are many reasons. For one thing you actually pay Apple with real money, not in eyeballs like you do with Google and Facebook as a consumer.