TFA asserts "... $10.5 million went into marketing the apple" which speaks against the 'create new variety' claims. Actual creation of a new apple variety is p

TFA asserts "... $10.5 million went into marketing the apple" which speaks against the 'create new variety' claims. Actual creation of a new apple variety is painfully simple - pick an apple growing in an orchard with multiple varieties, and plant the seeds and wait a few years. It's a coin flip whether it'll be good, or indeed how much it will differ from either of its parents and what characteristics it will have - but it really is that easy. But there's ~10,000 known apple varieties out there, selected over hundreds of years to be ideal in one or more of several distinctly different categories (cooking, baking, saucing, cider, fresh, long storage, preserve, jam, etc), with huge variation in how local climate and soil will affect the fruit, and also what flavours & textures each person may prefer. These guys aren't claiming this is the best apple, happily, but it is definitely designed for mass production: works well under irrigation, fast to fruit, prodigious fruiting, disease and pest resistant, attractive and edible skin, consistent size, flesh that's slow to brown, long storage and robust for transport -- and, dare I say it, attractive to the North American market (which probably means sweeter than what most other cultures would prefer).