I live in an area where apple butter is a traditional food; it's made with sugar, and spices (cinnamon at minimum, usually others too). Vinegar isn't part of the local type; such tartness as there is comes from the apples.
[Edited to add:] The Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge foothills have been apple growing areas for a while, and apples were a big part of the old subsistence farms' foodways. But I learned a few years ago that what really made apple butter take off as a common community product here was the proliferation of big copper pots for whiskey stills during Prohibition. Apple butter making was the reason people said they were buying them, and then after Prohibition ended they did indeed get used for that by Ruritan clubs, churches, etc.