My iPad came with four pieces of paper: a little product information guide, some stickers, a foldaway cover and basic instructions. Not bad, considering most things from the mail include half a tree.

What’s even better than the relative lack of paper in the iPad box is the relative lack of words on the iPad papers. Take the instructions. There are only a handful of words (eleven total) on the front side:

On the backside, there are just a few main actions you can take:

And that’s about it.

There are occasions when more words are needed, and those occasions should be honored. Most the time, though, brevity is an acceptable muse.