Corporate sibling relationships have reached a new level with Pixar's upcoming film "WALL-E." When Apple CEO Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney, I'll bet he never imagined that the companies would end up collaborating on an animated film. Though WALL-E himself is a clunky little tractor, his sleek black and white love interest EVE recalls all of the minimalist beauty of an iPod. As it turns out, EVE is a design product of Johnny Ive, Apple's design wizard. 

In an interview with Fortune, director Andrew Stanton explained that he wanted EVE to be "high-end technology... and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous." Sounds like just about anything on the shelves of your local Apple store, doesn't it? 

Thus, in 2005, Stanton made a call to Steve Jobs, who sent Ive to Pixar's headquarters in order to consult on the character design of EVE. However, due to Apple's "tight-lipped" tendencies on the future of technology and design, Ive offered "few specific modifications," according to Stanton. "The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do." 

If you're curious about the design for little WALL-E, the idea came to Stanton while playing with a pair of binoculars at a baseball game. 

It's good to know that at least a few people in the movie business still have a little imagination!

"WALL-E" hits theaters tomorrow, June 27th.