@Yet_One_More_Idiot  
The show designers did some research. The ponies are modeled closer to the build of Falabella horses (a miniature horse breed that’s even smaller than the Shetland pony), so they are the size of real miniature horses.

@PUBLIQclopAccountant  
But in this case, an apple is being assumed to be 4 inches, and the actual measurement for horses is the Hand, which is also 4 inches…so really 1 Apple = 1 Hand, no problem. :)
 
But yeah, measure to the withers, not the top of the head. :) AJ here is about 6 Hands high. That’s slightly smaller than a Shetland Pony (at about 7 Hands).
 
And apparently just FYI, the technical definition of a pony is “an equine that stands at no more than 14.2 Hands to the withers”. Anything over 14.2 Hands is a horse, not a pony.
 
Welp, I learnt something… :)

@Lemondance  
And they are measured with hands, not feet or inches (maybe they use m or cm in Europe)

Except horses are measured up to one’s haunches, not to one’s head.

There are hundreds of varieties of apples, some really rather big and some rather small. We’re talking whole number ratios to 1. And, to make matters even more complicated, the method by which people grow apples can have an effect on their size (and let’s not forget that not only to Earth Ponies have special abilities in terms of plants, but growing apples is directly related to Applejack’s special talent).
 
Apple scale is debunked. Goodbye.

I wouldn’t count on that scale if I were you. The apples could have different sizes in Equestria.

@Scoot Judging by the look on her face, pretty damn high.  

All I know is G1 ponies are about the same size as real ponies and I prefer G4 ponies be the same.

v How high is Megan?

Nice size chart, here is mine:  

Wouldn’t a 4-inch apple be rather large?

Even in the show apples come in different sizes. In real life - even more so. Taking 4 inches as a size of an arbitrary apple makes the approximation so large the measurements are worthless.

From the thumbnail I thought this was a really long bronyetiquette.

“Approximate” :D  
hehe, it’s such a close approximation like to approximate PI to 5 just for easier calculations

Hey, don’t tell me, I only uploaded it.

It’s called the APPLE System, not  
the “Apple Scale”.
 
It stands for Approximate Pony Placement for Length Evaluation.

yay, not only the apples stack, also the messurement deviation :P  
and you cannot be shure how large an apple is, since it depends on the kind of apples, do you know if they have smaller or bigger ones? no.  
i’ve seen better messurement methods …

(shrugs) It’s just something that hasn’t been uploaded here.

 
I sorta admire the effort, but why are people so intrigued by the exact size of the Ponies?

Natural I could kiss you.

Hey, I’m just copying the original tags.

>don’t use your fancy mathematics to muddy the issuse  
You used your right,check  
its too long to be a tag,also checked.

Yay, apple measurements. Goody.