What's the difference, in Apple parlance, between a Cursor and a Mouse Pointer?
Apple (and the computer industry as a whole)  is using the two terms to mean the same thing.
Going to the full extreme and setting the &quot;cursor size&quot; as large as you can, you can see that the pointer, even though it has changed to indicate I'm in a text box, is extremely large while the actual blinking cursor is still a &quot;normal&quot; size.

Definition of Cursor
Per Wikipedia:

In computer user interfaces, a cursor is an indicator used to show the
current position for user interaction on a computer monitor or other
display device that will respond to input from a text input or
pointing device. The mouse cursor is also called a pointer, owing
to its resemblance in usage to a pointing stick.