Apple and AT & T working together?

AppleInsider had reported that according to “those claiming knowledge of the matter”, Apple and AT&T might be working together to release new carrier-specific features to iPhone users in future iPhone OS updates.

This move is seen as an attempt by AT&T to increase customer satisfaction. 

According to AppleInsider, Apple might include the following AT&T specific features in future version of iPhone OS:

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  Overage Alerts: A proposed new setting under the iPhone's "Phone" preferences would allow users to customize a push notification -- in the form of a badge, message, or sound -- to be issued when they're in danger of exceeding their monthly anytime minutes.
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  New Voicemail Options: A new "Voicemail" setting, also proposed as an addition to the touch-screen handset's "Phone" preferences, would provide a means for users to disable the custom Voicemail greeting -- as well as AT&T's standard Voicemail introduction -- heard by other users.

Similarly, the same feature would also make it possible for users to automatically bypass Voicemail greetings, AT&T's standard introduction, and other automated instructions when placing calls to other AT&T customers.

AT&T has received bad publicity for poor network coverage and lack of MMS and tethering features even though the features have been available in iPhone OS 3.0, which was released almost 3 months back.

Lately, they have been in damage control mode. They announced last week that the MMS feature will be finally available to their iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS customers from September 25. They also published a video to explain the reason for the delay in launching MMS and the network issues and how they plan to address the problems.

Do you think the features mentioned above will help AT&T to increase customer satisfaction?
I think they are nice little features and step in the right direction but based on comments by our readers AT&T will need to do a lot more to win over their iPhone customers to ensure that they don't ship to another carrier when Apple adds new carriers in the US. If this rumor about AT&T specific features turn out to be true then it could also be a stepping stone for more carrier-specific features, which could be an interesting space to watch.