Apparently analyst Rob Enderle has gotten tired of the hate mail, or he's at least hoping to reduce the number of people who point at him, cover their mouths, and giggle when they pass him on the street. Rob, as you know, is the current reigning king of high-profile anti-Apple punditry, a title which he clearly deserves. The man effortlessly blends Apple-hostile rhetoric and a penchant for prognostication that's almost Criswellian in its startling lack of accuracy, and serves it all up both in his own articles and in sound bites he tosses to journalists so they can quote a real live analyst in their own stories. Good stuff all around.

But like we said, it seems that Rob has decided to take a little break from the Apple-bashing; faithful viewer Tony Wren points out that his latest piece at TechNewsWorld is actually outright complimentary of Apple on several fronts-- not many of them technical, so there's a bit of backhandedness to the compliments, but still, this is quite a change of pace from his normal Apple material. Allow us to dish you a few of the more surprising quotes: "Apple's designs are, well, elegant. There is no better word for it." "The company simply seems to understand what will get people excited about its products, and then it executes on that vision." "Apple often gets it right in one try."

Nice stuff, right? And there's more; Rob goes on to speak with surprising insight about that sexy back-and-down hinge in the Apple portables that lowers the height of the systems so they take up less space during inflight use. He refers to the Power Mac G5's enclosure as "trendy," "exclusive," and "stunning," which could almost make you forget that he's Mr. Ferraribook if it weren't for his constant comparisons to features of cars. (Porsche and the Honda S2000 both get a mention this time around.)

None of this is to say, of course, that ol' Rob isn't still smoking something potent. He closes the piece wondering if the HP-branded iPod might lead to an accompanying "iTunes PC," an Apple-built Wintel box that brings some of the Apple experience to the Wintel world. "What if this PC had an Apple hardware design and used a skin to give Windows XP an Apple-like user interface?" he wonders. Well, we could answer that right now, actually, with any number of humorous folk sayings. There's one about a silk purse and a sow's ear, for example. Another one about lipstick on a pig comes to mind. (Boy, the pigs just don't come off well in those old folk sayings, do they?) Frankly, we're a little surprised that Rob can wax poetic about the design of Apple's laptop hinges and then still think that changing how Windows looks is going to make all the difference, but hey, the guy's tripping, so we won't even try to understand.

Oh, and we can answer his next question before he even asks it: yes, we have looked at our hands. Really looked at our hands.

Meanwhile, is this the beginning of the sort of change of heart we've seen infect a few Apple-hostile pundits in the past? Could be, especially if what causes it is contagious. David Coursey used to be pretty unfriendly to Apple, too, but in recent years he's taken to bashing Windows on occasion while praising his Macs to the skies-- and he recently admitted that Rob Enderle is his friend. Indeed, Coursey's last bout of Windows-crashing ickiness took place right after he'd been to Rob's house. Think Rob may have caught something?

Maybe, maybe not; for all we know he's just trying to stem the barrage of flame mail until his eyebrows grow back, or perhaps the same psychotropic substance that has him thinking how great it'd be if Apple built Wintels also nudged him over the line into Crazytown. Still, whatever the motive, it's refreshing to hear Rob saying nice things about Apple for once. Enjoy it while it lasts, because his stash will run out eventually.