If you own a new iPhone 4S, you’ve probably had the chance to enjoy the services of Siri, the virtual assistant that Apple recently included with the device. But you may have also noticed that your new friend, while being able to help you with everything from reminders to schedule changes to sending messages to making calls and beyond with just the sound of your voice, also likes to suck the life out of your iPhone 4S battery like a sea lamprey on an unlucky trout.

Location tracking services kept on in the background can have the same effect, and if you’ve got both Siri and location tracking services running simultaneously, you can actually watch your battery life’s percentage get lower and lower right before your very (probably squinted in anger) eyes. How can you maximize battery life on your iPhone 4S (or even any iPhone running iOS 5) while still enjoying the modern conveniences of its services?

In the system’s Settings, you can click on Location Services. Then, you scroll all the way down the list of apps that draw from these resources and click on System Services. Here, you can toggle any of these options On or Off:

• Call Network Search
• Compass Calibration
• Diagnostics & Usage
• Location-Based iAds
• Setting Time Zone
• Traffic

But if you scroll down even further, you’ll see another setting:

• Status Bar Icon

Chris Pirillo recommends toggling this particular option to On (Off seems to be the default), which will allow you to view either a purple location services icon in the status bar that will indicate when apps are using location services, or a grey location services icon when it’s already used your location within the past 24 hours.

In this video, Chris goes over some tips that should help you figure out what options are best toggled Off in certain circumstances, and why some so-called security risks aren’t as big of a deal as some would have you believe.

Are there any iOS tips for saving battery life that you’ve come across and would like to share with the LockerGnome community? Drop us a line here and let us know!