yeah, most likely he's on nexus or a vanilla ROM.
it's something I noticed when moving to 4.4 on the nExus 5 from other ROM's and even touchwiz. most of the other ROM's and Skins use it as quick toggle on and off, but in 4.4 Nexus 5, it takes you to the settings page.
There's a Widget though that I use to accomplish the same thing to give me quick toggle for WiFi, BT, GPS, Orinetation and brightness.