The article is a great read. Though it talks about OBEX, and how Bluetooth wiped out IrDA, but not that Bluetooth took OBEX straight out of the IrDA stack.
Not IRDA, but there was also IRTalk built into some of the Power Book series, allowing native AppleTalk to a diffuse IR access point. I really wanted to try that out but never had the opportunity.
I managed to have my first IRTalk experience for MARCHintosh this year. For fun I ended up setting up a "fully wireless" (battery-operated and wirelessly networked) ImageWriter II and let people online print to it https://bitbang.social/@kalleboo/116289415275901037