Chris Holland has penned an interesting post over on the Internet Brands Developer Blog, suggesting that Apple may have its sights set on integrating VoIP into the iPhone, making it a truly converged communications device. At first glance, it seems unlikely that Apple would be thinking this away about VoIP (and we KNOW AT&T isn’t thinking this way), but Chris makes some excellent points and his predictions are really some food for thought.

I’ve grumbled about .Mac along with others and don’t think Apple’s online service offers much bang for the buck today, but if it became the integrated SIP provider that Chris envisions that could change everything.

A SIP Address looks just like an E-Mail address. A Person’s SIP Address could easily be stored in the iPhone’s Address Book. Apple could build SIP-capability right into the operating system, pre-configured with a number of existing SIP Providers for one-click setup, while still allowing for custom configuration, following a model very similar to E-Mail.

There are a few SIP Providers out there. But Apple could easily roll out its own SIP infrastructure as part of the .Mac framework, increasing their chances of providing a superior out-of-the-box experience, while promoting the .Mac brand to … competitive usefulness. From here, the sky’s the limit as to what Apple can do, leveraging iPhone’s brand and near ubiquitous and still increasing WiFi penetration. Forget about fighting over 3G vs GSM. WiFi and IP are universal WorldWide.

What do you think? Has Chris been SIPping the VoIP kool-aid, or he is on to something?