Thats not Hue’s fault though, your friend should be better at planning and implementing their Hue implementation. Hue bulbs default to “normal on” when power is restored, and also work with sensors, dimmers, and switches.
He just wanted to save $28. I have these in my house. No app required.
There's actually no particular reason you couldn't do it the other way round I suspect but I've not heard of anyone implementing it.