I agree, but that's not the point.

The point is that some -- perhaps many -- people want to distinguish between smartphone apps and traditional programs, and that's one way to do it.

It would be nice if there was a better way, but I don't know of one.

Incidentally, it's a distinction that people also make between "universal apps" (written for Windows Runtime) and desktop programs (written to the Win32 API) even when they do the same job on the same Windows 8 or Windows 10 PC.