Thinking about growing a "good" Apple tree in MA

My mother has a pear tree that gets almost no pears some years, but this year it has hundreds. Its an old tree so the pears are huge. Just what you'd like, if you liked pears. I, however, do not like pears. I've often thought off and on about growing an apple tree in my yard, but in the end I always chicken out because I don't want to constantly be picking up fallen, rotten apples. But I'm looking…