Applied finance means you need do more quantitative subjects as part of your degree and they generally set the path you take, rather then you choosing which finance subjects to do.
If you major in finance in a comm degree there's much choice in the elective finance subjects you can do which tend to have lower-level maths in them and are more qualitative subjects (though you can follow the same path as an applied finance degree but then you might as well do the applied finance), in addition you'll have more space to do elective subjects outside of your degree as you'll only do the one major.