Gene silencing. I’ll pass…
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I understand its main virtue is that it’s non-browning, and it is otherwise not particularly notable, so I’d pass for that reason. I’m not worried about the gmo aspect personally, but time will tell.
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Always thought, that apple that browns fast has greater amount of iron, so is good for you. 
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Depends entirely how it tastes.
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My understanding is that the main market is those bags of precut apple slices (rather than selling the apple whole to consumers). I’m not opposed to genetic modification categorically, but I dislike this particular reason because a) it’s purely aesthetic, b) it seems like the kind of thing that might change consumer expectations for apples, and thus the apple market, and not in a good way. Then again, the half dozen popular standards (Granny Smith, etc) have a lot of staying power, so who knows.
Some quotes from Intrexon regarding Artic Granny and Artic Golden:
The great thing about the “Arctic apple” is that eventually we hope to have most of the varieties that you would find in a grocery store available in that Arctic variety. So, we have Granny Smith and Golden Delicious today, and we’re working on Fuji approvals and more over time.
Article here: Q & A: Jack Bobo, SVP and CCO of Intrexon | Successful Farming
600 acres of Artic apples in Washington state have been planted and they are producing fruit but I haven’t seen any information on where they are being sold. They plan on having 2000 acres by 2020.
Personally, I embrace the introduction of GMO crops, including apples. I would like it if every apple I grew had a gene or three inserted to make them immune to fungus and insect damage- as long as they were tested the same way we test synthetic medicines before introducing them to the market. However, I’m not exactly thrilled about the creation of apples that can be sliced and surrounded with plastic and stored for a long time without browning. An apple’s skin pretty much does that and the apple core at least bio-degrades.
Properly handled, GMO technology could be a huge boon for the environment and productivity in ag.
But then, I’ve long since lost the belief that mother nature is the kindest of mothers or that I can read God’s mind.
All that said, in the context of our current culture and government, I worry about corporations introducing products not adequately tested to be proven safe. I’m not sure if GMO’s are particularly dangerous in this regard- maybe they actually are more carefully scrutinized than other potentially dangerous products.
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Anybody try these apples? Update on Arctic apples:
In April, the company planted 955,000 new Arctic apple trees on 650 acres in Washington State. This planting included the first 80 acres of Arctic Fujis, which received approval from the FDA in April of this year. Orchard operations now totaled 1.9 million trees on 1,250 acres. We are expecting to crop 217 acres of orchard in September, October with an estimated 10,000 bins or 8 million pounds of apples anticipated. This is a 5-fold increase over 2018.
Our Arctic Golden harvest will be completed in September and the Arctic Grannys in September.
Browning is usually caused by acidophilus probiotics and is one of the reasons why they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, because the probiotics that apples grow are beneficial for our stomachs. If this apple doesn’t grow acidophilus, I wonder what kind of bacteria it does grow?
I also wonder how far these trees are planted from other apple trees. It would be hard to plant them five miles away to stop the introduction of these genes into the apple tree population in washington