[Gandan57]

I have an unknown variety cooking apple tree on my plot and this year quite a number of apples have rotted on the tree. Of the ones we have tried to use, many have a dry rotten core and almost all have brown specks throughout.

When reading the gardening page in the most popular daily rag today it seems the brown specks are called bitter pit.

[Trillium]

With the strange weather this year and either drought or flood conditions in various parts of the country, bitter pit is cropping up more often than people realize. We've had the same problem here in Ontario this year too.

But from your description, it sounds like you actually have core rot which is caused by fungi primarily carried by red and golden delicious apples, which then spread to other varieties.

You'll find info on bitter pit here:

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-009.htm

And core rot here:

 http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/tfipm/postharvest.htm#corerot

[Gandan57]

Thanks Trillium, most have been binned, but here`s one I`ve just photographed which typifies the problem.   

[Trillium]

Yes, that's bitter pit.