Err, to be fair the context was that OS X usually has a very outdated version of Emacs. (Don't have a Mac so dunno for sure if that's still the case or if the article is out of date.)
GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (x86_64-apple-darwin14.3.0, NS apple-appkit-1347.57) of 2015-04-13 on mymachine
You can download and install 24.5-1 at http://emacsformacosx.com/ without having to use homebrew.