I don't believe Zack Herbert is misunderstanding this or taking the wrong approach by putting the responsibility for restoration on the hardware device as you've suggested.
Then the article lacks details when it quoted the message saying that it has to be "
tapped on a new device".
By the term "
device", it means a new hardware wallet since it started the quote with "
If you lose your device", and the phone is mentioned separately.
And it's not a suggestion, it's my opinion based from what's written.