That was my thought. Showed the wife and she said "that is what you do when you want to have a few apples compete in the state fair, not an entire orchard" I have 3 reasonable sized apple trees and one mother tree that is massive, 30 ft easily. She is easily 80+ years old. Anyway, there are so many apples there is no way I could even think to do this.
I have 5 semi-dwarf apples that we completely bag - head to toe.
I would not do this on the full-size tree, of course.
But dwarf/semi-dwarf we do bag completely.
Yes - it takes "few" sandwitch-size bags (by college kid is doing it now days, it is his annual chore).
But - once done, you are done for the entire season - no more work until harvest.
This bagging is combined with manual fruit thinning, which you should do anyway for have consistent crop and well-sized fruits.
Consider how my spays you must do to control coddling moths and apple maggots (while also killing other innocent bugs, already vanishing).
Bonus - the apples keep wonderfully directly in the zip locks.
I keep them just like that.
They don't shrivel and don't pass rot around, if anything occasionally occurs.
Finally, consider doing few apples (say a 100) for experimentation.
Only do the easy ones within reach - try for yourself and see.