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I admit I'm destroying the metaphor here but there are a lot of useful comparisons to be made between different cultivars of apple and those comparisons have implications on their applications.

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That's the whole point of the metaphor - comparing apples to apples is good, apples to oranges is bad.

and its a bad metaphor. there are many reasonable comparisons to be made between any two things even when both are not fruits

Technically speaking, there are limits and you cannot compare incomparable. You can find distinctions between two phenomena, a.k.a. inherent traits that make them different-by-definition from one another, but you cannot compare (liken, collate, contrast) them in any meaningful way. Like, what's the outcome of comparing "soft" with "warm"? And hence, comparing apples to apples are not pointless, quite contrary - they are comparable items and it makes total sense to compare them in the context of superiority by desirable value axes.

> Like, what's the outcome of comparing "soft" with "warm"?

You can have "soft" or you can have "warm" — which do you want?

You can have an apple or you can have an orange — which do you want?

I'm comparing apples to oranges every time I'm trying to decide which fruit to buy at the supermarket though.

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