That's a lot more than "a bit," and spacing above titles only really makes sense when there's content above it. This just suffocates the space available for the scrollable content.
One of my favorite things about the app is how it always conforms so perfectly to whatever Google's design guidelines are at the time. Makes it feel coherent, like it really belongs on the phone.
As soon as you scroll the whitespace goes away. It's meant to make things reachable with one hand. Both Google and Samsungs design guidelines recommend doing this.