One Tech Tip: How to get the most life out of your device

LONDON (AP) — If you want to use your shiny new iPhone for as long as possible, you better take good care of it.

Most people are now holding on to smartphones longer instead of regularly upgrading them, and there are many reasons why.

At the dawn of the smartphone age, you might have upgraded to a new device every few years to make sure you had the latest must-have features or because your carrier's contract subsidized the purchase of the newest model. But that's no longer the case as smartphone technology has matured and innovations have become more incremental, and carrier pricing models have changed.

There's also an environmental push to keep old phones out of landfills as electronic waste becomes a larger sustainability issue. Smartphones these days are also just sturdier and better able to survive dunks and shocks.