Okay, as someone who owns both Linux PCs and a MacBook, while I fully don’t think anyone should ever get a Mac for gaming specifically, what on earth are you talking about with “restrictions on what software you can install”?
You can 100% install anything you like on your Mac. Yes, if it’s not signed, the OS will decline to run it by default, but you can very much bypass this if you choose to (one time authorization - I.e. clicking ‘open anyways’ and entering your password - in privacy & security settings is all that is needed).
The ‘Mandatory Fee’ for App Store access and the code signing (to prevent users needing to ‘open anyways’ as I described above) is $100/yr, which may indeed shut out some indie game devs, but isn’t any sort of contributing factor to actual game studios not supporting macOS (in fact, many game studios that support iOS still don’t support macOS even though they’ve already paid the fee and macOS can straight up run iOS apps by default). No, the general lack of macOS game support is all down to other policies and priorities at Apple.
So let’s criticize Apple for stuff they actually do (like iOS App Store lock-in, in most markets, and not caring about giving more than the bare minimum of support for any gaming that isn’t mobile generally) and not invent specious claims that aren’t accurate.
It’s not an issue of him ever thinking of choosing to wipe it during his travel, he clearly had no initial intent of doing so, which is why he didn’t do it before departing . What’s caused all the legal issues is that he decided to give his duress pin when his actual pin was demanded by the US border guards. The border guards entering that pin caused the device to reboot and factory reset. That’s why he’s in trouble. They’re claiming he purposefully caused evidence to be destroyed when an investigation was already underway.