New Post: Default of "async" option "false" or "true"?

I'm a little confused about the default value of the "false" option.

In the "General Synax" section of this page it says:

• "By default, all of the Web Service operations are called asynchronously with AJAX."
  

Whereas in one of the async/promises blogposts it says:

• "In the promises version, the async option isn’t set, so it has the default of false."
  

Is this something I'm reading the wrong way?
Or does the quote from the blogpost just refer to the use of $().SPServices() in the context of promises?