MapQuest climbed to the top of Apple’s free iPhone app chart in Canada and reached fourth place on the U.S. equivalent after the company refused to change “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” on its map following an executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump last week. As of Monday morning, the app held those positions on the App Store charts.
For younger readers, MapQuest was once a popular service in the era when printing directions on paper was common for road trips, before smartphones and apps such as Google Maps and Apple Maps became widespread.
MapQuest surge and downloads
MapQuest offers iOS and Android apps, though the company has not been as popular as it once was. The company said hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded its apps since Thursday, and that it was seeing roughly a 50× increase in usage of its map as of August 30. “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 MapQuest general manager Doug Berger in a press release. “Hundreds of thousands of people signaled to us this weekend that we got it right, by downloading our app.”
Google Maps is now showing the “Lake America” name to U.S. users, but Apple has yet to follow.
