You raise a fair point and I agree, at the time nobody considered an original iPhone screen to be “tiny”, however I emphasised the size more due to the design challenges from taking an app/website from desktop to mobile.

Designers had to put elements that would easily fit onto a desktop layout somewhere in this mobile landscape which didn’t have as much screen real-estate, so I was suggesting that components like the hamburger menu were an answer to that problem as it allowed for a lot of options to be represented by a single icon.

I also agree that tabbed navigation isn’t a silver bullet, nothing ever usually is. I’m not for or against the hamburger menu either, I think both options have their pros and cons and it very much depends on context whether you should use them.

Thank you for sharing your insight 🙂