My opinion is any time you have a sharp knife of Hatchet is a good time to trim small branches.

There are two considerations. One How big is the tree, and how many apples will you be picking. If large enough this could be a day's project to pick, pack, and move the apples to the proper storage area.

The other consideration in How big is the tree. If large enough trimming the tree may create quite a bit of brush that has to be disposed of. Again, it could be a day's project.

So trying to do them together, may cause the two activities to interfere with each other. Also doing them one at a time will give you the opportunity to concentrate in one important task at a time.

I know how a combined project like this would go for me. I would start one, find a problem that would prevent that one to continue, divert to that, and after one project led to another I would finally get the first project complete a several days later. Remember this is a DYI project

" I would start one, find a problem that would prevent that one to continue, divert to that, and after one project led to another I would finally get the first project complete a several days later. " yea, that sounds VERY familiar.