Ulf, thanks bring me up to speed.  I'd love to make this happen, so I've written some responses inline.  

TL;DR; I disagree with privacy concerns raised in the PR and (in my non-legal-expert-opinion) think we should be able to do this w/o affecting user privacy or complicated workarounds.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 10:47 AM, Ulf Buermeyer <ub2125@columbia.edu> wrote:

Hi Brian & all,

that's basically what I implemented last year (but for articles with
geocoordinates):

https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-ios-wikipedia/pull/3

The addition was rejected for policy reasons (see discussion in the PR)
- iOS hits Apple servers to download maps and thereby reveals the users'
locations to Apple.

This was before I joined the org.  Though I'm reluctant to, I'd like to revisit this debate because I feel we'd be adding a non-trivial amount of complexity (maintenance cost) to the app when it can be avoided.  

First, showing a map with annotations on it does not require knowing the user's location.  We can simply render a map for a given coordinate region and decorate it with annotations from the article.  To put it plainly, does looking up map data about Egypt tell Apple that I'm Egypt?

Second, and most importantly, we're already giving Apple the user's location for the Nearby feature.  If we wanted to show the user's location, we could simply ask for it.
 

Thus we thought we might rather use OpenStreetMap data: If you cache the
tiles on a proxy operated by Wikimedia, then nobody's privacy will be
harmed. The OSM tile server guys would probably prefer you to do that
anyway (server load on their side would be HUGE if that's rolled out in
production).

Only issue (besides setting up the proxy) was to keep iOS from loading
Apple data. That's now feasible as of iOS7 using [MKOverlay
canReplaceMapContent] => YES.

IMO, the cost of implementing and maintaining all of this does not justify the benefit to the user.  We can add a lot of user value with other features, and in this case simply prompt the user with an "Open With..." dialog to view it in an app of their choice.  This shouldn't be necessary, as we can render maps in the Wikipedia app without requiring user location.
 

Best, Ulf


On 20/03/15 15:38, Brian Gerstle wrote:

> Adding a native map view to display nearby locations on a map sounds
> like a great feature!  Are there any links to mock-ups of what the
> feature is supposed to look like?  I ask because it's not clear why we
> need custom map tiles or URL protocols instead of simple annotations &
> annotation views.  These are straightforward to implement and fully
> backwards compatible.
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org
> <mailto:abaso@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
>
>     Migrating thread to mobile-l, with Ulf's permission.
>
>     On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 11:29 PM, Ulf Buermeyer <ub2125@columbia.edu
>     <mailto:ub2125@columbia.edu>> wrote:
>
>
>         Hi all,
>
>         if you're deprecating iOS6 then the solution might be to just
>         implement
>
>         [MKOverlay canReplaceMapContent]
>
>         and return YES. This effectively prevents iOS from loading Apple map
>         content:
>
>         https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/MapKit/Reference/MKOverlay_protocol/#//apple_ref/occ/intfm/MKOverlay/canReplaceMapContent
>
>         As for the MKTileOverlay, that would be an option as well, I'm
>         just not
>         sure how efficient it is for caching OSM content - the
>         documentation is
>         silent on that point:
>
>         https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/MapKit/Reference/MKTileOverlay_class/index.html
>
>         And as I already have the drawing code we could go with that.
>
>         Best, Ulf
>
>
>
>         On 19/03/15 01:49, Adam Baso wrote:
>
>         > Oops, /now/ I'm CC'ing Max.
>         >
>         > On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 10:07 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd@wikimedia.org <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org>
>         > <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org>>> wrote:
>         >
>         >     Ulf, I was also thinking we could maybe use a custom NSURLProtocol
>         >     to intercept the MKMapView's requests for the apple map tiles
>         >     (instead of a "overlay only" mode - would have the same effect I
>         >     think). Thoughts?
>         >
>         >
>         >     On Mar 18, 2015, at 8:45 PM, Adam Baso <abaso@wikimedia.org <mailto:abaso@wikimedia.org>
>         >     <mailto:abaso@wikimedia.org <mailto:abaso@wikimedia.org>>> wrote:
>         >
>         >>     Ulf,
>         >>
>         >>     Great meeting you!
>         >>
>         >>     Hi there - I was wondering if there was perhaps a way to make use
>         >>     of MKTileOverlay for achieving these ends? We're going to be
>         >>     deprecating iOS 6 in the relatively near future, and this is an
>         >>     iOS 7+ thing.
>         >>
>         >>     http://nshipster.com/mktileoverlay-mkmapsnapshotter-mkdirections/
>         >>
>         >>     I've CC'd Max Semenik, who may have some insight into tiling
>         >>     server options at Wikimedia.
>         >>
>         >>     -Adam
>         >>
>         >>     On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 3:13 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd@wikimedia.org <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org>
>         >>     <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org <mailto:mhurd@wikimedia.org>>> wrote:
>         >>
>         >>         Good seeing you again as well Ulf!
>         >>
>         >>         I'll check out the OpenRadar ticket and experiment some more
>         >>         with your maps patch.
>         >>
>         >>         Exciting stuff!!!
>         >>
>         >>         On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Ulf Buermeyer
>         >>         <ub2125@columbia.edu <mailto:ub2125@columbia.edu>
>         <mailto:ub2125@columbia.edu <mailto:ub2125@columbia.edu>>> wrote:
>         >>
>         >>
>         >>
>         >>             Hi,
>         >>
>         >>             good to see you guys today! I just wanted to keep you
>         >>             posted about that
>         >>             maps issue. In fact I re-filed a rdar with Apple
>         in order
>         >>             to have them
>         >>             add an "overlay only" mode to MKMapView today
>         (the other
>         >>             one had been
>         >>             closed w/o any feedback). See my OpenRadar for
>         this issue:
>         >>
>         >>             http://www.openradar.me/20132462
>         >>
>         >>
>         >>             For your reference here is the pull request I
>         issued last
>         >>             year (that's
>         >>             effectively the code for what I showed to Moiz
>         today):
>         >>
>         >>
>          https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-ios-wikipedia/pull/3
>         >>
>         >>             I'd be happy to work with you on a solution that
>         complies with
>         >>             Wikimedia's policies as I think that maps for
>         articles or
>         >>             even an
>         >>             initial "places around you" feature with pins on
>         a map
>         >>             would be very
>         >>             useful additions to the Wikipedia app.
>         >>
>         >>             All the best, Ulf
>
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Mobile-l mailing list
>     Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
>     https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>
>
>
>
> --
> EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
> IRC: bgerstle




--
EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
IRC: bgerstle