I've never had an SMS MFA from Apple. It's always been sent through to other registered apple devices through their network and OS.

New logins to iCloud etc always pop up on my MacBook / iPhone with a map image showing me where the request came from and if I want to allow it, o my then can I get the code.

No idea what this article is on about.

Apple doesn’t use sms 2fa, more to the point any message you get from someone not in your contact list gets red text added to the bottom saying “Apple will never ask you for any information over messages”

The Apple 2fa model is built around trusted devices - essentially turning each trusted device into a yubikey style hardware 2fa dongle.

Verification prompts also include gps level “this is where the request is coming from”. So the attacker needs to know your exact location when they’re going after you.

Apple 2FA only use SMS if there isn't a more secure method available and it must be explicitly selected when enabling 2FA. From 2016, the default is trusted Apple devices (running a minimum of iOS 9 or MacOS 10.11) or web browsers that are registered to your Apple ID. It can fallback to an automated phone call with two trusted phone numbers.