I worked on an apple farm in upstate New York during my high school years. Picking, pressing and bottling cider. That was a long time ago, before all the dwarfing rootstocks such as M9. Now, apples are typically grown tightly in rows, trees 2 meters apart, almost like a vegetable.
And the new varieties are great. Has anyone tried SnapDragon, also known as NY1? It's a hybrid from the HoneyCrisp. I've not tried it but hear it's very good.