No, you can’t grow a honeycrisp apple tree from a honeycrisp apple seed!

So how are new fruit trees made if not from seed?

New fruit trees of a given variety are grafted, which effectively clones them. The cutting of the variety you want is called the scion, which is grafted onto a rootstock, which is a different apple tree variety.

Are there fruit trees that do come true from seed?

Yes, but not any of the cultivated fruit trees that are traditionally grown in the UK.

If you are growing vegetables, the distinction is usually easy: hybrids do not come true from seed, open-pollinated varieties (i.e. all heirlooms) do come true.

Can I breed fruit trees from seed at home?

Absolutely, if you have the space and patience.

By hand-pollinating your trees and protecting the flowers from bees, you can choose which trees to cross, which will increase your chances of getting a new variety that you like.

You will often hear that it’s necessary to grow 10,000 apple seedlings to find one good new variety.
That might be so for a commercial breeder, but when they say “good new variety”, they don’t merely mean “well worth eating”, they mean “good enough for a breeder to patent and grow commercially to compete with existing, well-known varieties that everyone is already comfortable buying.”

By that high standard, a delicious, disease resistant apple with ugly looking skin that would be the pride of any home grower is a total failure commercially. Shoppers primarily buy fruit based on how it looks, so ugly skin is out.
Likewise, if the apple you bred were delicious, healthy, and beautiful to behold, but had soft skin and bruises easily, it would be no good for transportation: a commercial non-starter.

Here’s what a commercial apple breeding program looks like: