Fair enough - I was just kind of shocked that Apple would be used as a sign of openness and support for the free flow of information, especially in light of their highly restrictive treatment of the iPhone and App Store...
The echoes of Apple's legendary, iconic "1984" Macintosh ad are still reverberating in the brainpans of most Americans, even those who were not around in 1984 to see it. Apple has carefully kept their anti-establishment image alive for 25 years.
To understand Apple, one must separate the concept of artistic/creative freedom from technical/ownership freedom.
Apple's version of freedom is the former -- "We will supply you with the best single-source tools in the world, to let your creativity express itself and do things you cannot do with any other products. We will make this easy and fool-proof, so that you don't have to worry about the technical details."
This is a direct contrast with the latter, which is best exemplified by Linux -- "We will all cooperatively work on tools that aren't ever quite right, but you get to contribute to them and improve them yourself. We expect you to learn the technical details, but in return, with some effort, you can do whatever you want with these tools."
Linux is free and open, but takes a fair amount of effort to get working. Apple costs money and is closed, but is dead simple and just works. Seems to me that choice is good. I use them both.
I also use Windows, which is neither free nor open, nor is it dead-simple, and (until Win7) it did not just work. But that's a whole 'nother angle... :)