Making Appple , Cranberry Pie for thanksgiving. There is always a space between fruit & top crust. Is it worth precooking apples before

I'd agree with SKK. I have not pre-cooked myself. I don't, after all, make apple pie all too often. But I have heard pre cooking is the trick to creating less of a gap between fiing and crust. I think serious eats did a piece on it in their "food lab."

I am a big fan of Shirley Corriher's book Cookwise. I always pre-cook my apples slightly and it makes a big difference. Here is one of her recipes - you can follow it and easily leave out the walnuts and dates if you prefer. http://www.jewishfood-list.com/recipes/pie/applepiebigchunk01.html

I wouldn't cook the apples in advance without a different recipe that instructs, but what I would do is switch to a lattice topping. Then you don't have the old pastry tent over the filling scenario. With strips of dough, they tend to hold on nice and tight.