The Windows 3.11 Program Manager is the crab of app launchers.
It has a grid of icons representing groups, and you can open groups to reveal app icons inside.
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The evolution on Windows was particularly awkward. Windows 95 introduced a start menu, which was the main way to open apps until windows 7.
Windows 8 introduced a start screen with a grid of app icons and live tiles, which could be laid out in 2 dimensions. This grid receded to an area on the start menu on Windows 10, and in windows 11 the live tiles disappeared. The spatial ordering of icons was replaced by the groups we have on all other platforms.
iOS: Steve Jobs was notoriously not a fan of folders, and the iOS home screen started out as a flat list of icons. Of course this didn’t work once people have more than a dozen apps on their phones, and iOS 4 introduced folders on the home screen.
Windows 11 came full circle, and now has a grid of icons and groups in the ‘pinned’ section of the start menu.
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