“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, but most apple seeds don’t grow where they are dropped - they are carried away by birds or rodents and seed elsewhere. Also, most apples aren’t true to seed anyway - plants grown from seed don’t bear the same fruit
Temperate-zone seed fruit like apples and pears rarely look, taste, and feel like their genetic parents.
Temperate-zone stone fruit, on the other hand - think peaches, apricots, cherries, etc. - are quite different. You plant one of those seeds, and it will bear fruit that is (usually) indistinguishable from the parent tree that the seed came from.
Now, Apple and pear trees are grafted for both cloning of the fruiting section as well as good rootstock. But most stone fruit grafting has cloning only as a secondary consideration - they are grafted mostly to be joined onto well-proven, high-quality rootstock that can produce lots of sap and confer resistance to certain diseases.
Source: am orchardist.