To 留壹手: 不是你理解的那样。

Yes, your budy went back to China many times and re-entered US using AP and renewed his H1 visa couple of months ago, but one thing you might ignore is when he entered into US, his I94 card had AOS on it, meaning pending status,but when he hot his H1 renewed, his status was changed back from AOS to H1. In other words, he lost his H1 status by using AP.

My 2 cents!