The details are a matter of taste of course, but Android widgets do kind of provide this as well: the home screen has a mix of shortcuts and widgets (correspond

The details are a matter of taste of course, but Android widgets do kind of provide this as well: the home screen has a mix of shortcuts and widgets (corresponding to pinned apps in your app drawer, I guess?) and clicking the right spot in the widget usally brings up the app, so usually I use the calendar, weather and notes widgets as (or in preference to) shortcuts to open the apps.