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Phablet Reviews: Before and After the iPhone 6
Velcroman1 writes Bigger is better. No, wait, bigger is worse. Well, which is it? Apple's newly supersized 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the jumbo, 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus are a marked departure for the company, which has clung to the same, small screen size for years. It has gone so far as to publicly deride larger phones from competitors, notably Samsung, even as their sales grew to record highs. Tech reviewers over the years have tended to side with Apple, in general saddling reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Note – a 5.3-inch device that kicked off the phablet push in 2012 – with asides about how big the darn thing was. Are tech reviewers being fair when they review the iPhone 6 Plus? Here's what some of them said today, compared with how they reviewed earlier phablets and big phones from the competition.
I hate, hate, hate, hate large phones. If I needed a bigger screen, I'll pull out my tablet or my laptop. I'm a skinny guy, I wear tight-ish jeans (fiance hates it, but I gotta be me), and pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass, and that's with an IPhone 5S.
I'm going to pass on the 6 and hope they come out with a traditional-sized one for the 6S or 7.
...is worse for others. Guess it really depends on how big your pockets are.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The press is biased towards Apple? You don't say...
These aren't reviews from "before ... the iPhone 6", they're exclusively reviews of the Galaxy Note and S3 - the first "phablets". Writers' tastes haven't changed because they're duplicitous hacks trying to find a way to hate Android; they've changed because of experience.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
It's Phat Tablet!
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This seems to be a typical sort of response from a media that tends to bias Apple products. I make no criticism of Apple with that remark, only those responsible for reviewing their products fairly. I get the feeling that a huge number of these reviewers, rather that being classical "tech lovers" if you will, are more prone to have a brand or ecosystem identity that drives their judgement about a given product or product family.
This kind of trend is fairly common across all major phone manufacturers, across both iOS and Android, and also across Apple and Google themselves. It is why I rarely take a phone review seriously, be it for a phone that I actually am interested in or one that I'm not. Having information about specs and hardware is a good place to start when deciding between two pieces of technology, but past that, a huge amount of one's enjoyment of a device can come from external factors, such as previous brand investment, ecosystem size and saturation, and even things as "trivial" as what one's friends are using.
I try not to be terribly upset when I see Apple product reviewers exhibiting these signs of bias, since a large number of Android (and perhaps even some windows phone?) reviewers do the same things. I read and watch these reviews as I would watch news about politics: with a boulder sized grain of salt. While some truth may be found somewhere in the reviewer's statements, they still can and do fall prey to human shortcomings that affects us all.
I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of people in the article that basically said the same thing in both reviews. I couple of people magically changed their tunes with the Apple 6, but not as many as I thought.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, you should read it. Most of the ones that didn't like a previous phone for being to big don't like the Apple 6's size.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Its just small enough to fit in my pocket, but big enough screen to use as an ebook reader.
It also has a microsd slot that will take a 64 gig card - big enough for my music collection.
(I am probably not going to be buying much more music after Oct 1 since Amazon are going to start charging MN residents sales tax)
It just makes sense for many reviewers to be turned off by initial massize screen of the samsung... but then it becomes part of the accepted norm so it's not such a big deal later on. It almost becomes an expectation.
(eom)
Before switching to x86: x86 sucks ass! PowerPC all the way!
After switching to x86: x86 is awesome! Glad we don't have PowerPC anymore!
They haven't released numbers yet, but the press reports seem to indicate that the 6 Plus demand is outstripping supply yet the chorus of people who think that even the 6 is too big let alone the 6 plus is as loud as ever. I think this is an interesting dichotomy.
I think the 6 Plus is fine -- I find more screen better than less screen, even if the increased size limits one-handed usage. I don't think there's an "ideal" size for any phone unless you toss in some usage requirements, like one-handed use or pocket storage complaints. I know some people who would use a full-size iPad as a phone if they could because none of the one-handed use or pocket issues apply to them. I think it's just a matter of personal preference.
I do think it's interesting that Tim Cook's Apple is responding to market demand instead of imposing a Jobsian design fascism. I also think that for a decent chunk of people, the 6 Plus is meant to take over some of the things they'd use a tablet for. I'm mostly happy with my iPad 3 (even with iOS8), but I think with a 6 Plus I'll reach for it less and put off upgrading it until it runs out of iOS updates.
And I think a lot of people who want both but can't swing it financially will find a 6 Plus a reasonable universal device. This is what surprised me about the 6 Plus release as I'm pretty sure it will eat into iPad Mini sales and even some full-size iPad sales.
What would be nice and I don't know if we'll ever get there for lots of reasons (technological and sales/marketing) would be a watch-sized device becoming the root device with the phone or tablet being the kind of screen/user interface, tethered to the phone for network access. That way you could pick your "phone" based on size preference, or none at all if all you wanted was bluetooth audio and phone calling.
Is that it's well... rudimentary and crude.
Standard journalism often has to reflect on the articles they have written in the past in order to look at their viewpoints and editorial on subjects in the past, explain how those might have changed, and then reflect that in the new editorial they are writing.
Perhaps it's not just tech journalism. It's probably just ALL journalistic standards that have basically gone down in the era of FOX news and infotainment, that we don't pretend to want that intellectual honesty that perhaps once was there. The press is complicit in most things for access -- it's true of Apple's press events (and how Walt Mossberg fawns over anything Apple does), as much as it is true of traditional press fawning over the sitting President in the hopes of better access.
The Verge isn't at fault because they are Apple fanboys; we are at fault for not looking at them with a harsher eye. As Bill Clinton said, people are now more accepting than ever, unless they have a viewpoint they disagree with. And everybody LOVES Apple. It's just not cool not to (apparently).
Of course I'm a weird guy with a Windows phone because I wanted a better camera (at the time), so what the hell do I know...
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I've found with my Note 3 with Otterbox case that I would either need to use the speaker function or have a bluetooth earpiece to call in a convenient manner. Putting the phone up to my ear is just embarrassing.
Of course, that's not what I got the Note 3 for, otherwise I would've stuck with my old dialpad phone. I got it for PDA functionality, for which it performs the task wonderfully.
The original Galaxy Note got some pretty bad reviews, some even calling it a fad, due to its size. But then it sold like hot cakes, flying off the shelves.
Then review sites learned ther lesson and gave the Note 2 a decent spin and gave it the top reviews it deserved. Now the LG G3 is getting all the 4.5-star reviews.
It was always meant to be the other way around (i.e you read reviews to help you make an informed purchase), but sites need ad money and realized it's un-cool to hate on phablets.
I replaced my old broken Note 2 with a tiny Nexus 5 and I'm suffering with the cramped 4.95" screen. Next time, I'm going medieval on screen size.
I've seen numerous people holding the big giant phone up to their head.
And, yes, it looks absolutely dorky.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Have you actually tried them? I mean I understand not wanting a Note 4 or iPhone+,
but have you actually tried phones in the Galaxy S5 class (~5")? The rounded back (which the iPhone 5 hasn't got) helps a lot.
I was actually surprised how little you feel the phone considering it's size.
I went from a Galaxy Note 2 to a HTC One Max. And then I went and put an Otterbox around the thing.
I carry it in my front pants pocket. It snags not more than any other rectangular deice (because it's always the corner that gets snagged by a fold) and I can actually use it to browse the web without unusable mobile versions of websites and without pinchzooming like a deranged person.
I don't have to carry a second device, either, that needs a daily recharge... I could have been talked into carrying a phone and actual tablet if, and only if, there was a Nokia 6210, with nothing more than phone, sms, contact list, 3G/4G and Wifi Hotspot/Tethering capabilities. But such a thing does not exist, at least not at a price that would make you better off buying a smartphone all the same.
I love the size... finally it doesn't feel like I have to pinch a teensy, tiny device between my not even that enormous fingers and be afraid of it slipping away. That's why I dig the Otterbox too, by the way. The HTC is so thin, I was constantly afraid of inadvertently flicking it through the room.
YMMV, but I love these things to death. If I could have had the HTC with full metal body and twice as thick (and therefore with a battery in the 6Ah range), I would have bought that instead.
I've got a Note 3, and I frequently hold it up to my head to talk on it. I also gave up caring about what people think of based on what technology I use a couple of decades ago.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Exactly.
Different people want different things.
This is not news.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Anyone using Wave Charging *did* buy a brick with the Apple logo on it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Wait, I thought hipsters were the guys who liked the new things?
They liked the new things that coincided with their generation hitting their prime. The new things as the next generation hits its prime, the new things that are different than "their" things, not so much.
Skinny jeans are becoming passe, soon to be laughed at when seen in photos, "OMG, look at those pants, can you believe we/they wore those". At least for guys. Tight jeans for women will always be fashionable.
Yes there will be die hards. Every generation has those too.
Like if you had an iPad and an iPhone you were a hipster, but if you had an old Android and a Lenovo laptop you were a legitimate human being.
Poor analogy. The iPhone vs Android thing is strongly correlated with zip code, in other words income. Its simply a matter of getting what you want vs getting what your finances force you to settle for. Sure there are a few who shriek about the "walled garden", a loud minority, sort of like Linux desktop users.
Perhaps I'm being a little hard on the Linux users. Many of those at Linux conferences are carrying MacBooks.
I bought an iPhone 6 recently figuring I'd skip the obviously too big 6+. While I like most of the features I've found even the base 6 is a too big. My thumb doesn't even reach all the way across the bottom of the screen and only about half way to the far corner if I'm holding the phone in a good stable grip. Even reachability mode doesn't get everything in close enough. I wish that it shrunk the screen slightly as well. I find that I either have to carefully balance the phone or use two hands. I've already drop it a few times trying to reach the stuff just a bit to far, and the area between my thumb and rest of my hand hurt the first few days after I got the device from trying to force my thumb to reach across. To be honest I was expecting it to be a bit big as there is a small part of an iPhone 5 screen I can't reach without shifting the phone but that bothered me only occasionally. Going to stick this one out, but not sure I want another large phone, especially since I carry a tablet* with me most of the time. Granted I guess I have short hands, my thumb is almost 1.5" long.
* - Okay, sometimes I carry up to 3 with me so that I have Android, iOS and Surface covered; as part of checking to see how stuff runs on different OSes. And yes tablets are much bigger, but they are two handed devices.
You pretty much nailed it. What the summary failed to take into account was the most obvious factor: that the culture surrounding smartphones has changed.
Two years ago when the Note launched, phablets looked ridiculous, the UIs weren't designed for screens that large, and reviewers who hadn't used them before didn't even know how to hold them properly. Those early ones really weren't that great, but the fact that the general population wasn't ready to accept them since they looked so out of place didn't help any either. Even so, enough people bought them that they stuck around and started to shift what people considered to be normal.
Fast forward two years, and Samsung's continued push into the phablet space has made some major inroads. At this point, a 4" screen on a high-end phone is seen as small, UIs have done some catching up to be more usable on screens that large, the general population is more educated on how to use a screen that large, and people have begun to recognize the benefits of larger screens. Suddenly, they no longer look quite so ridiculous.
I know as scientists and engineers we want to be able to say with certainty that "X is the best at Y", since things that are true should remain true. But the bigger truth here is that the world changes, and this is one of those instances. What made sense 2 years ago may not make sense today, simply because our perspectives and tastes have changed. Hell, if you can remember all the way back to 2007, you may even recall that the 3.5" screen on the original iPhone was thought to be pushing the limits of what was reasonable, given that it was practically twice the diagonal size of much of the competition it was going up against. The trend back then was to go as small and thin as possible, but the original iPhone forced us to shift our expectations and perceptions of what was normal.
Thin is still a trend, but small isn't any more. Samsung successfully shifted that. It should come as no surprise then, that modern reviews would reflect that change in public perception, and would look more favorably on a large screen today than they did 2 years ago, regardless of who the manufacturer happens to be. And, in fact, that's exactly what's going on, given that Samsung's recent, large-screen phones have been stealing a lot of thunder from Apple, which is what necessitated this move on Apple's part in the first place.
what you want vs getting what your finances force you to settle for
These are not the only choices.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I think I'd rather hold a paperback novel to my head than a taco, though.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
Hey, you sound just like the fashion police back when I got my first ridiculously huge phone that they wouldn't be caught dead using. My 4.3" HTC HD2.
Then, again for my huger more ridiculouser 5.3" Galaxy Note.
Then, again for my hugerer ridiculouserer 6" Ascend Mate.
Now, my hugererer ridiculousererer 7" Huawei X1.
I know you reactionary types need time to catch up to new things. Please, do take it, but in the mean time, shut up. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying reading and watching vids on my "phone", which is really more of a e-reader+media player. Don't worry, you'll get there...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.
– Lauren Goode
This turn-around is nothing more than Apple's reality distortion field. Now that Apple has given in and is selling phablets, of course their entire marketing effort is focused on it. They will make us love it the same way they made us love everything else: the Apple fanboy rumor mill hyping the next big thing, hyping the big media event, where the Apple CEO stands up and tells us how awesome and exciting this is, describing in simple terms the design problems they were trying to solve and showing the solutions. An Apple keynote is basically a hyped up lecture on why the next Apple product is great, and if you buy one you get an A.
Sure, we might be ready to give in to huge phones, but it seems to me that the change is really that Apple has thrown in the towel. Traditionally they haven't given the customer what the customer asked for; they tried to figure out what's actually best for the customer and sell that. Apparently, some marketing trends are just unstoppable.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
In 2012, the Note and S3 had the same number of pixels. The iPhone 6 also has the same now as those two did then. In contrast, the iPhone 6 Plus has full HD 1920x1080 resolution. You actually get something for the larger physical size! The 2012 Note was pointless.
LOL ... that, sir, is the first time I've been accused of anything like that.
Go fuck yourself. ;-)
You know, there are many of us who don't use our phones like that, and have no interest in it. At all.
I don't have a data plan on my cell phone, it gets used for texting more than anything else (my HTC Desire is not actually very good as a phone without bluetooth). In fact, I'd have to go looking for it to know exactly where it is as the moment.
If I need to travel with a device, I have my tablet. If I need more, I have my laptop. I have friends you can't really have a conversation with, because their face is always buried in their phone. So, yes, I'm behind the curve and plan on staying there.
My point is that, by the time you're up into a 7" phablet, unless you are using speaker phone (in which case you're probably an annoying ass when out in public), or a bluetooth headset (which we used to consider annoying asses, but have adapted to it) ... holding a 7" phone up to your face looks pretty ridiculous. Anything bigger is going to look sillier. (And I also assume very uncomfortable to hold onto)
It's a trade off or having a single device which has more utility. I get that with screens, bigger is better.
But, thankfully, life hasn't forced me to be constantly tethered to a device like this.
So, in the mean time, I will laugh at people holding a huge phone up to their face, and shake my head at people who can't be away from their phone for long enough to go to the bathroom. Because, really, nobody likes a Twitter Shitter.
For me, I neither need nor want that kind of functionality. My wife, however, is stuck carrying around a cell phone so she can monitor her email. But that's at least better than being tethered to a desk.
I sincerely hope not. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Problem of the phablets is price. The iPhone 6+ is probably the most expensive phone ever. Galaxy Notes also tend to be more expensive than Galaxy S.
He pretty much HAS to start responding to market demand, vs. dictating what he thinks people SHOULD want. He's not a visionary with a head full of tech ideas to roll out to the masses. He's a former supply chain management guy.
Personally, I think Apple needs to find a "sweet spot" between the two, to find the greatest success. Jobs was a big believer in the concept that people don't really know what they need or want. You can survey them and they'll give you responses, but they're generally based around what they've already seen and already know exists.
I think there's something to that, but it's less relevant when you're just revising existing products. That's what you've got here with the iPhone. Everyone knows what the product is and what it does, and it's gone through 6 major releases (and all the smaller interim updates like 3gs, 4s and 5s). It's best, at this point, to find out what its users (or potential users) want to see changed with it, and try to accommodate it
Fair? HAHAHA! You MUST be new!
*Tech reviewer goes back to slobbing the Apple knob*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
yeah, but then you end up with several crappy devices in place of one device. winning?
I looked around, and could not find two tablets and two phones that were $500 and "decent". Do you have some links?
If it weren't for the better keyboard on my Android phone, I probably could. I liked my old Motorola Krazr ... long battery life, small to carry. But it sucked as a keyboard for texting. All I did is swap the SIM and be able to text better. But I've subsequently uninstalled all apps, and do not have access to data. So I could go back to my krazr and not actually have much of a difference.
LOL ... fuck, it's high school all over again.
I'll go with middle aged geek, with a waning interest in technology just for the sake of it. It's cool, has its purposes, but plays a very circumscribed role in my life these days.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Counterpoints:
1) For some people two devices is a hassle
2) You're not factoring in the cost of mobile data plans for 2 devices vs 1. I know you can tether/mobile hotspot, but then you're back to point #1.
3) For users already invested in the Apple garden of products, then what Android has to offer doesn't really factor into it. (Although I personally agree that Apple prices are outrageous, but the market seems to think otherwise)
Now that Apple has joined the phablet bandwagon, we have another problem: manufacturers are only offering their premium devices in phablet, or near-phablet, sizes. Want the "smaller" iphone? Sure, but you have to give up camera features. Most of the Android phones are in a similar boat - you can get a 4-4.5" screen phone, but you'll give up memory, or speed, or camera functionality, LTE, or any of a number of other features. Smaller screens mean lower price points and cutting corners.
Wouldn't it be nice it you really could choose a 3.5-4" screen phone that did everything else the larger models did?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
you know, my wife and I saw the phones in the apple store and we didn't like them. they looked cheap. not because of the materials or build quality, but because they look like other cheap phones.
I have an iphone 5. maybe later this year I'll upgrade to 5s, or maybe I'll keep the 5. I hope in coming years they won't abandon the original form factor.
Circumscribed? As in surrounds your entire life?
More like, it occupies a bounded aspect of my life, stays within that, and doesn't spill into the rest of my life.
That would be your definition #2:
Which is exactly how I used it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'd have gotten the Galaxy Mega except that it's considerably inferior (less RAM, slower processor) to the Galaxy Note 2 that I wound up getting. I have it in an Otterbox Defender case that at least doubles, if not triples, the thickness of the phone.
I have no difficulty holding and using it. I can do it 1-handed when I want for simple things like dialing, but I prefer 2-handed operation in general most of the time. A smaller phone would be very hard to use that way. Even the Note feels annoyingly cramped compare to my 10" tablet (HP Touchpad running CyanogenMod); the 15% bigger (linear) screen of the Mega would have been preferable. Dunno offhand whether there's an Otterbox-type case available for it; that's a dealbreaker.
Even worse, he's talking about *four* devices (which I don't even think you can find four devices that sum up to under $650).
I've never been convinced it's well defined.
It's not. It's basically an ill defined pejorative for "people who do things I don't like" with a dash of a superiority complex thrown in. They think the other person has a superiority complex so they beat them to the punch with their own. Basically if you call someone a hipster you are probably covering up your own insecurity and couldn't think of a more creative insult.
For the price of an iPhone, you could have two decent Android phones and a couple of cheap tablets.
I'll bite. First question is which iPhone are we talking about here? 5, 5S, 6 or 6plus? With what memory capacity? Second, go ahead and prove it. Find me two "decent" (meaning similar specs to the iPhone) Android phones and two "cheap" tablets at unsubsidized prices that cost the same as an iPhone. Only restriction is that it has to be something that is actually useful because I cannot fathom any reason to buy something that will gather dust.
He pretty much HAS to start responding to market demand, vs. dictating what he thinks people SHOULD want.
If that were the case then he should start offering thicker phones with a bigger battery. The fact that companies like Mophie actually have a business model strongly indicates there is a demand out there for phones with enough batter to last more than half a day.
Jobs was a big believer in the concept that people don't really know what they need or want.
And he is largely correct. If I were to go around my office and ask people what they would like that would make their job better, I will largely get blank stares or some extremely modest improvement to something they were already doing like a more comfy chair. People are REALLY REALLY bad in general about being technology visionaries. Henry Ford said it best when he said "If I asked customers what they wanted they would answer a faster horse".
Where this viewpoint is most often wrong is when you are talking about incrementally improving an existing product they are already familiar with. People often have well formed and informed opinions in that case. They can tell you that they like a bigger or smaller screen on a device they already know and use. They have NO idea if they will like something totally new (or seemingly new) like ApplePay.
Cool iPhone 6 Plus Feature Lets You Bend Phone Just by Sitting http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...
It is a lot smaller than a standard telephone handset... why is this somehow different? e.g. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000...
Better duck!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
After switching to x86: x86 is awesome!
My feeling at the time was that it was nice to have it be faster, but I still didn't like the mess underneath that was x86 instruction sets... but since I didn't have to deal with it that was OK.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I ordered the Six Monolith, even though I am quite sure it's too large.
I write iOS applications for a living, and I need it for testing, so I will suffer the thing to have the newer form factor to test on.
The one aspect where I'm thinking I'll like the size more and not less is for photography. For a long time I've been wishing they would put larger cameras into the iPad, now they have...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"holding a 7" phone up to your face looks pretty ridiculous"... Well, I feel less ridiculous the very few times I do that than if I had to carry a phone AND a tablet AND a laptop every time I travel. Plus I don't really care about ridiculous, like beauty it is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
"unless you are using speaker phone or a bluetooth headset" I'm using a wired headset. Sorry if that's not fashion-approved.
"But, thankfully, life hasn't forced me to be constantly tethered to a device like this." Well, if you prefer to be tethered to a stamp-size squint-box for fear of how others look at you, that's your prerogative. I advise you to gather a crowd next time you go buy... anything... and get their approval before any purchase.
To give you a point of reference, a 6" screen (let alone my 7") is to a 4" screen what a 23" is to a 15" screen. I wouldn't go back to 15" on my desktop, I wouldn't go back to 4" for my phone.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I would love one the size of a 4s. Is there a petition out there to support this sentiment?
I guess I'll never understand the incessant, infantile need of some to combine terms into cutesie baby-talk terms.
But why get upset about the size? If people like it, they'll buy it and use it. If not, it will die of its own accord.
Better to offer a wide range of shapes and styles so at least there's some semblance of choice.
This is (almost?) reminiscent of OS wars, laptop versus desktop versus tablet wars, and even portrait versus landscape wars.
My first true smartphone was an original Note. Yeah, I can be behind the times. I use both hands to use it. In fact, I used both hands when I used a flip phone. I use both hands when I use my son's iPhone. After the Note died, I now use the Moto G, which is one of the smaller phones out there. Guess what? I still use both hands.
I plan on getting the Note 4 or the Note Edge, just as soon as I can get both of them in my hands to check them out (and I know what the price of the Edge is going to be...).
If you must use your phone with one hand, then by all means, get a smaller phone, the phone that fits your hand and your use.
Phones the size of the Note fit my hands, and I'm rather used to the stylus as well, even if it didn't work with the Moto G. I've been happy with the Moto G, but I'm not liking the lack of some of the sensors and the lack of LTE, which I thought I could live without, has been something that has me wanting a new phone. So, a new Note will be in my future. The Edge intrigues me at the same time it screams that I probably won't use it anyway. But if the cost differential isn't that much, I'll go with it anyway.
So a big phone is what I'm going choose as my marketing choice.
Anybody else is free to make their own choice.
Bryan