Any garden sites that give the skinny on the differences between various cultivars.

Here's my dilemma: I can get about a dozen varieties from my usual supplier. Generally prairie hardy apples are not commercially viable due to their size.

Now in the garden catalog they use words like 'crisp' and 'good fresh' and 'good storage' but they only use 2 lines for each variety, and it reads like they have picked attributes at random. So for example, they will say, "fireblight resistant" for one. Does that mean all the other are susceptible? As it turns out, no. I've found other descriptions that will say resistant to ones my supplier says nothing about.

So, question time:

Is there a web site that compares apple qualities, preferably with hard numbers like brix, and pH and titratable acids.

What is different between a good juice or cider apple and a good cooking apple, and a good fresh apple? Does one characteristic being good mean that another is bad?

Why do some apples keep better than others?

In particular I'm looking for information about these
Battleford Apple
Gemini Apple
Goodland Apple
Honeycrisp Apple
Norkent Apple
Norland Apple
Odyssey Apple
Prairie Magic Apple
Red Sparkle Apple
September Ruby Apple
Winter Cheeks Apple
Dolgo Crabapple
Rescue Applecrab
Kerr Applecrab

If you know information about at least two of these, share with me how they are different.

Others, keep adding.

I ran into Orange Pippin, and submitted a bunch of what little I knew about a bunch of Canadian Prairie varieties.

The ARS GRIN page is amazing at first look, although very dense. It will take me a while to learn how to use it, and mine what I need out of it. It has some hardy apples, notably battleford and goodland, honeycrisp, norland, dolgo, rescue, kerr.

It's missing others: Gemini, norkent, odyssey, prairie magic, red sparkle, september ruby, winter cheeks.

For people coming after me:

Century Farm Orchards
Fairly short list (3 pages) of, I'm guessing, zone 5+ varieties.
http://www.centuryfarmorchards.com/descripts/osadescripts.html

Big Horse Creek Farm.
300 plus varieties, most with a picture of the fruit (and their are some weird ones). Has some colder zone apples, but not quite to prairie cold. Under resources on this page there is a bibliography of books, (many out of print) and a page of links elsewhere. Recommended.

http://bighorsecreekfarm.com/

Cummins
Good New York grower. Good information on the varieties they have but not an earth shaking list.

http://cumminsnursery.com/