I think the claim here isn't the fact that you can ping, but that you can do it in context. I haven't played Apex, so I can only go on descriptions that I find online. It seems that the system allows players to convey a lot of information with the type of marker they set from a radial menu. And supposedly you can even even put markers on specific items in dead teammate's inventories to call dibs and stuff.

My interpretation is that the system was specifically developed to convey a significant portion of the information that is usually communicated verbally between teammates when in a match.