Hello,
My name is Josh Minor, and I am the Product Manager for the Wikipedia iOS app. I wanted to speak to a couple specific issues and misunderstandings raised by this email thread.
First, please take a look at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Maps_service which provides some background on this decision. Jonatan linked to it, and it covers several of the concerns raised on the thread and gives our reasoning. I'd also suggest subscribing to this ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T157763 which Jonatan filed, and where you can track efforts and issues with replacement maps.
A few clarifying points:
1. The Places tab[1], and its use of Apple’s maps tiles, is not part of the articles or article display, it is a navigational aid to help you find articles. This doesn’t mean it’s exempt from considerations raised here, but just want to clarify that this is not about editor created maps in projects, but rather an app-specific discovery mechanism.
2. The feature doesn’t violate our privacy policy[2] and was reviewed by Wikimedia Foundation's Legal department before entering beta. The App’s access to the users’ geolocation to recommend nearby articles, with the users’ explicit consent, is already part of both apps. The new feature merely adds a different way to visually view nearby articles - the user must, as before, still provide explicit consent for the App to access their geolocation. Users can always turn on or off the provision of their geolocation via their iPhone location settings.
The feature also makes requests to Apple’s map tile servers for display on the App. These tiles may or may not be near the actual location of the user. It doesn’t involve sending Apple the articles you read or anything about your Wikipedia usage. Apple has public statements and documentation to explain[3] how their maps service preserves privacy by using a randomized and frequently changing device ID to request the maps, by not tracking users over time, and by not building map usage profiles of users. Overall, Apple’s data collection practices are governed by their privacy policy [4], which users must agree to order to use their iPhones.
We plan to further expand the explanation in the FAQ/privacy section of the https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Maps_service page in the next day or so.
3. As stated by others on this thread, the issue at hand is the feasibility and usability of a libre maps tile server, and impacts on users and how it reflects (or doesn’t) the values of Wikimedians. The rest of the work on this feature (such as the time spent on search, visually clustering items on the map, a list view of nearby landmarks, and the Wikipedia article pins) will be applicable, independent of the map provider. In fact, I’d estimate the engineer doing the work spent more time on hacking to try to make a combination of MapBox and Wikimedia tiles work, than he did/will on integrating/removing Apple maps.
4. This feature was announced on the Wikimedia Blog[5], described in an initial MediaWiki.org page[6], all work was documented and tracked on Phabricator (including an initial tech investigation, the request to remove Apple Maps during development, and the overall feature[7]) and then the decision to push into beta with Apple Maps further documented on MediaWiki.org[8].
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for the feedback and the opportunity to engage in a civil discussion about these important issues. Again, if you are interested in the next steps, I’d invite you to subscribe and comment on the phab ticket https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T157763 or the MediaWiki.org page.
[1] Design specification: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T130889 [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Maps_service#Privacy [3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056, http://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/ [4] http://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-policy/ [5] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/17/wikipedia-mobile/ [6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Nearby [7] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ios-app-feature-places/ [8] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/iOS/Maps_service