MapQuest – the site where ancient (a.k.a. early 2000s) travelers would find directions to print out – and other map apps have seen a recent resurgence in popularity since President Donald Trump decided to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Within two days of Trump’s Aug. 27 executive order to change the name of the lake, Google announced that its popular Google Maps app would change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America and noted that the name had changed in the government’s Geographic Names Information System. Apple changed the name in its map app shortly after.
Meanwhile, polls showed that the name change was deeply unpopular with the public. The Economist/YouGov polling of 1,592 U.S. adults from Aug. 28 through Aug. 31 found that just 17% of participants approved of re-naming the lake. Reuters/Ipsos poll results released Sept. 1 found that just 14% of respondents approved of the name change.
According to the Associated Press, Google and Apple’s decisions to re-label Lake Ontario “sparked a backlash among some users, already unhappy with the companies’ decisions to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on their maps following a previous Trump edict.” Users also have concerns about digital privacy and have started looking for map app alternatives.
Google Maps is the “dominant player” in the digital map space with about 80% of the market, according to estimates cited by the AP. After Apple Maps, Waze was listed as the third most popular navigation app in an article from PC World published in August, before the Lake Ontario name change. However, Waze is also owned by Google and displays the Lake America name.
That’s where other alternatives – such as the throwback use of MapQuest – come in to play. Of course, users don’t have to print out instructions anymore. MapQuest is now owned by a California-based company called System1.
In an Aug. 31 press release, System1 announced that MapQuest was the top navigation app in the U.S. app store and the eighth most popular app in the app store.
“It is the highest chart position in the brand’s 30-year history,” the release said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded the MapQuest apps since Thursday, and usage is running roughly 50 times its normal rate.”
System1 acknowledged that this surge in users came after “MapQuest’s decision to keep the historical, familiar names for lakes and gulfs on its maps.” It also noted that users of the app can access a tool that lets anyone rename the lake themselves – it’s a feature that was included last year with the re-naming of the Gulf of America.
As of this Thursday, the app was 31 on Apple’s app store, with Google Maps in the first spot. EarthScope GPS, an app from the EarthScope Consortium, was in the second spot.
Other alternative apps mentioned by the AP include: TomTom, another “retro” option first released in 2004; HERE WeGo, owned by a consortium of German carmakers that includes Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and Citymapper.
