It feels like this article is getting confused between an application storing its own "application state" versus a user's own "authored files". There is a massive distinction.
The example of a fitness tracker app storing each workout is bad. Because these are not a file and never would have been a file in any era of computing. It is application state.
The example of a fitness tracker app storing each workout is bad. Because these are not a file and never would have been a file in any era of computing. It is application state.