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Its not sufficient of an explanation.

For desktop browsers there are also no application launch icons.

Probably has most to do with the limits of the UX of a phone. Pulling up a browser and typing in a url, hitting autocomplete is done in 2 seconds. On mobile everything is so much more painful, a lot more desire for one click wonder buttons

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Wait, there is sort of speeddial/favorites tab in every browser, desktop and mobile. E.g. a food ordering webapp is my first “wonder button” in safari’s empty tab. I could even put it to the phone home screen (no need for that though).

Chrome has the ability to save sites as a desktop shortcut. It even prompts you to do so on some web apps, like Stadia, so you can use it like a more "normal" desktop app.

Safari on iOS can do this, too. You can pin a website to your home screen, which is something that I have done for PWAs.

It could have easily gone another way where this was the "normal" behavior of the mobile ecosystem.

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