The iPhone was also loudly marketed as a phone.

Because MMS fundamentally required breaking the persistent internet connection and swapping over to an alternate access point to do the download. Newer kernels have somewhat resolved this, but Nokia focused ENTIRELY on standard internet protocols and not on hackjob telecom protocols.

But at the same time, the device is open enough that fMMS could come into existence. So you can have MMSes while I continue to not use them, and save the memory/space the software would otherwise have occupied.