Web Apps don't require an extra installation step, they merely allow the user to "install" the app -- to pin it to the homescreen and have it open without the browser UI.
To me mobile icons all look the same and it is highly stressful to scroll through pages of them. Even Apple is terrible if you just stop and think. Photos are just a meaningless pinwheel, the Settings are hidden behind a movie poster for The Golden Compass, if I had a Hacker News app it would get confused with all the other apps that have an H or N or Y for their icon or that are colored orange. As it is I can type “n” on my iPad and… it is auto suggested. I type “1” and it suggests my web based RSS reader - why are brands shooting themselves in the foot by getting lost in a maze of twisty icons that all look alike?
What I don’t understand is that I can frequently ‘grok’ icons on my desktop although I hardly ever use them (so much easier to hit the windows button and type 2 or 3 letters and hit enter). Steam will install icons for games I download an instantly I know that’s Atelier Sophie. I use Microsoft’s RDP client for iPad all the time and think it is great but the icon is completely meaningless, it is just some burnt umber wedges that look like the logo of a multimodal shipping company from the 1970s.
Authenticator apps are a great example, I don't use them often enough to pin to home and all are identically named and have generic icons.
Another pain point is the overuse of material design with similar color schemes (it's not just google apps that use this). Half the app list become lost in a sea of red, blue, green and yellow fragments.
(And for what it is worth, the (email) inbox on my iphone shows 129,523 message unread)