MapQuest hits No. 1 on App Store after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

Thirty years after its launch during the dot-com boom, MapQuest has now become the top free app on the Apple App Store. This achievement happened despite President Trump's executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. The digital mapping company decided to maintain historical and familiar names for lakes and gulfs in its maps. The company announced this decision on social media on August 27, the same day Mr. Trump signed the order directing the name change.

MapQuest acknowledged that Lake Ontario is correctly labeled on their map, and later posted about it. To give users a say, MapQuest launched a tool allowing them to create alternative names for the lake. Since the announcement, the app has seen hundreds of thousands of downloads, and its usage is running approximately 50 times its normal rate.

Doug Berger, MapQuest's general manager, stated that the company chose to keep the name as part of the ongoing conversation and to provide an app that reflects users' familiarity with the names. The decision follows the U.S. and Canada's trade dispute, which led to a 50% tariff on some imports. Google Maps has since updated its maps to reflect the new name for Lake Ontario, renaming it Lake America, while Apple Maps still displays the original name.