The original iPhone had a 3.5” screen, Wi-Fi, and EDGE. The iPhone 3G came a year later, with, shockingly, 3G. So yeah, that web browser that actually worked did actually work. Sure, it was slow compared with today’s speeds, but giving people what they want slowly matters far more than giving people what they don’t want marginally faster. Remember most people were on dial-up at home back in those days so the web was hardly fast on desktop either.

WAP might’ve been able to convey information, but so could Lynx in an 80×24 terminal – people want more than that. WAP sites were never popular (aside from some Japanese platform, IIRC) and I don’t think the average web developer had even heard of WAP or WML at the height of their popularity.