There are a ton of weird things about apples that make them seem like a fruit out of a fantasy novel. First off, they don't grow true to seed; a seed from a McIntosh apple doesn't produce a McIntosh apple. The only way to reliably reproduce an apple is to cut a branch off one apple tree and graft it onto a second apple tree. In that sense you could say that every apple you've ever eaten has been passed down through the generations from one apple farmer to the next. Add a touch of ceremony to this and you've got yourself a magical fantasy fruit.
It's actually weird that we even call them "apples" at all. In Old English, the word "apple" basically just meant "fruit". This is still evident in French, where the potato is called the "pomme d'terre", or "dirt apple". "Pomme" coming from Latin, meaning "round fruit" and still extant in English as pomegranate.
In the middle ages, apples were called other things on their uses. Pearmains were apples that stored well over the winter. Pippins were cooking or baking apples. Russets were sweet eating apples. If you look at heirloom apples, you can still find some varieties with these names. They come from before apples were called apples.
The farther back you go, the more confusion there is about what type of fruit somebody was writing about, especially if it's been copied or translated along the way. In fact, it's highly unlikely that the biblical "forbidden fruit" was an apple, as apples were likely unknown to the early Israelites. It's just a translation error. I don't know about you, but I would love to see somebody trying to translate the ancient apple texts, whose meanings have been lost to time, trying to find the origin of some mystical fruit passed down from legendary generations ago.
Give me magic apple high fantasy