Guides

Many people value their iPhone over most other possessions. After all, we keep much of our personal information there and it is usually among the more expensive purchases we make.

However, chances are there are some things you could or shouldn't be doing to ensure your iPhone's longevity. Many iPhone users place a case on their device, but not too many think about ways they can protect the internals, primarily the battery. No matter how pristine you manage to keep your iPhone on the outside, once the battery dies you're out of luck.

Here are a few things you can do to make sure your iPhone lives a long, happy life:

Though it has been around for several years now (since iOS 7.0.3), the iCloud Keychain is still new to some, and remains a source of confusion for others. If you are new to iPhone, or just haven't ever bothered with iCloud Keychain, it serves as a basic manager for your web logins (via Safari), your credit card information, and Wi-Fi network login information, and it keeps your Mail, Contacts, Messages and Calendar up to date across your devices as well. It will keep this information safely encrypted and allow access to it from your other iOS and OS X devices.

Apple's native Maps app has been around for about three and a half years at this point, initially launching with iOS 6 in September of 2012. Unfortunately, when it first made its debut, most people were already using Google Maps and on top of that, Apple's Maps suffered some setbacks due to reported inaccuracies. It has quickly gained market share since its early woes, but it may still remain relatively unfamiliar to many iOS users.

iCloud is Apple's subscription service that provides cloud storage, data synchronization and an email address. It allows your iTunes and App Store purchases to be shared across all of your devices and with family members, synchs your photo library and other app data across devices, gives you access to Find My iPhone and allows you to backup and restore your iOS devices, among other features.

All you hear about are all the great bells and whistles that are coming every time Apple releases a new beta for a major iOS update, but when the final version finally arrives people with older devices discover they can't access most of the promised new features. Trying to figure out what new features your device supports can be confusing. For example, on Apple's iOS 9.3 preview page it says you can "sort notes by date created, date modified, or alphabetically." This is true, but all the other new Notes features are found within the Notes app, while the sorting feature needs to be setup in the Settings app. New iOS 9.3 users could waste an entire day trying to find the "Sort Notes By" section if they have never used the Notes settings before. If you didn't think to check the Settings app you may have convinced yourself you're going crazy, or that your device doesn't support the new Sort By options.