The new MacBook Neo announcement raises old questions around what rights we have (and don't have) to install software on devices we own.

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The MacBook Neo announcement highlights a contradiction: it uses the same A18 Pro chip as the iPhone 16 Pro, yet the MacBook allows unrestricted software installation while the iPhone locks users to Apple's App Store. The author argues that Apple's safety justification for mobile restrictions is a pretext for profit, and that smartphones are full computers artificially limited by corporate and government interests. The post advocates for a 'right to root access' — the principle that device owners should be free to install any software or OS on hardware they own, treating mobile devices as the general-purpose computers they truly are.

Your Phone is an Entire Computer