Google Maps folded like a cheap suit and Apple Maps is under pressure to do the same. But as modern smartphone mapping pioneers mull whether to acquiesce to the US president’s orders to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America to aid his trade tiff with Canada, MapQuest has one simple message for Donald Trump: “We’re not changing it.”
For our younger readers, MapQuest was this website from the early dot com boom where people once printed physical sheets of paper showing the driving directions to their destination. They used these things called “printers” that sat next to a desktop computer. They rarely worked and constantly required more money to be spent on ink. The Maps were great though.
You see, MapQuest is old school cool and it believes the names of places shouldn’t be altered because an octogenarian had a tantrum when he didn’t get what he wanted from his closest neighbour. MapQuest is keeping its mobile app and browser version exactly how it is.
And the decision has proven a hit for the online mapping innovators. Mobile users have sent MapQuest surging into to the upper echelons of the App Store charts for the first time, well, ever probably. And it’s not just downloads either. The company says usage has increased fifty fold too.
“We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they’re familiar with,” said GM Doug Berger in a media release. “Hundreds of thousands of people signalled to us this weekend that we got it right, by downloading our app.”
MapQuest’s opportune moment came as Google changed the name to Lake America for Google Maps users in the United States, while the Trump administration revealed the president was pushing Apple to do likewise.
“The president reached out to Apple directly, so I’m sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America,” Interior Secretary John Burgum said in an interview on Fox News.
Google didn’t need any pressure applied. It changed things voluntarily over the weekend. It claimed to simply be responding to the official line from the government, and that was business as usual.
In a blog post published on Saturday, the company added: “Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see “Lake America,” those in Canada will continue to see “Lake Ontario,” and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names. These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.”
What are you calling Lake Ontario now? Wait, that’s a stupid question isn’t it. You’re calling it Lake Ontario, aren’t you?
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