> Secondary opinion, why is the Google app lacking? Because they really don't want people to use it. They much prefer you reveal your phone number and use SMS instead. This way they can easily identify you personally.

Sure, companies may do some evil things intentionally, but an app UI sucking is usually the default state of things and not some malice necessarily. In this case, I think part of the neglect of Google Authenticator is them trying for years to pivot to other forms of two-factor authentication that are more phishing-resistant than an OTP (Yubikey-like and smartphone based systems).