The early ones likely weren’t up to their quality standards. Then at some point they may have decided to hold it for the X redesign. The main issue with cell p

The early ones likely weren’t up to their quality standards. Then at some point they may have decided to hold it for the X redesign. The main issue with cell phone standards appears to be power. Apple doesn’t like using radios that use up so much power the user has to turn them on and off to manage things the way early 4G or 5G android phones were set up. They seem to prefer to wait until a lower power version is available that they can leave on all the time without significant issue.