‘Honeycrisp’ apples are conditioned at 10 °C for 7 d before storage at 3 °C to reduce development of low temperature disorders such as soft scald. Conditioning, however, can result in greater risk of bitter pit development. A strategy to compromise between two types of disorder by storing fruit for short periods at 0.5 °C before being transferred to 3 °C showed promise in earlier research. Here, this strategy has been investigated over three years. Fruit were conditioned or not conditioned for 1 week at 10 °C before being stored at 0.5 or 3 °C. Fruit stored at 0.5 °C were moved to 3 °C after 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 weeks in year 1; 5 weeks in year 2; and 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 8 weeks in year 3. Fruit quality and incidence of physiological disorders assessed after 16 weeks in years 1 and 2, and 20 weeks in year 3, plus 4 d at 20 °C. Internal ethylene concentration (IEC) and concentrations of acetaldehyde, ethanol and ethyl acetate of the fruit were measured during storage in year 3. Storage at 0.5 °C for different durations before transferring fruit to 3 °C in different years did not inhibit bitter pit or soft scald development compared with 0.5 or 3 °C with or without conditioning for 1 week at 10 °C. Fruit quality was not affected by storage temperature manipulation in any year. Bitter pit incidence correlated negatively with that of soft scald, and positively with IEC. Acetaldehyde, ethanol and ethyl acetate concentrations reached a maximum at 6–8 weeks of storage, but were not consistently related to treatment differences on soft scald incidence. However, volatile accumulations were associated with increasing severity ratings when fruit were categorized by disorder severity. Cavities and vascular browning of fruit were increased by short-term periods at 0.5 °C in year 3. Previous research suggesting that temperature manipulations could be used to manage soft scald and bitter pit incidence was not supported by this study.