I too drive BMW since 2017. My previous car - a model 2018 5 series (iDrive 7) had no restrictions.
Now have a 2024 4 series and I don't really know for sure, but I believe only recently did the restriction appear in the 2024 model (iDrive 18).
I'm not that happy with it to be honest, even though I use those functions seldomly. It's just the principle of it. When one puts those functions into perspective against all the rest we're supposed to only deal with on the display, the choice of disabling the functions is simply illogic and silly. There's just no justifiable logic for BMW to go and decide on applying such restrictions. Perhaps they wanna push the use of their own interface - just using the phone over bluetooth I mean. I wonder if one can scroll contacts in the iDrive phone app.