MapQuest surges to No. 1 in App Store after Google, Apple adopt Trumps Lake America
Apple is the latest big tech company to go along with President Trump’s order to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.Apple implemented the name change on its map app on Tuesday, after Trump personally reached out about the matter, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.Meanwhile, MapQuest has surged to the top of Apple’s App Store after refusing to adopt the controversial moniker, according to app-ranking data reviewed by The Post.The navigation app grabbed the No.1 spot among free apps in Apple’s US App Store — edging out ChatGPT at No.
2 — after declaring it would stick with the centuries-old Lake Ontario name.MapQuest also climbed to No.5 among the top overall free Android apps in the US, the data showed.The sudden surge followed a stark split among mapping apps after Trump signed an executive order on Aug.
27 directing all federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as Lake America.The president made the move after talks on a new trade deal with Canada broke down amid mutual recriminations between the two governments.“We’re not changing it,” MapQuest declared in a terse social media post the day of the executive order.The company subsequently made clear it would keep Lake Ontario as its default map name, even as its larger rivals moved in the opposite direction.Google began rolling out Lake America for US users on Aug.29 after the name was changed in the federal Geographic Names Information System, or GNIS, according to the company’s public statement.Apple soon followed suit, though a majority of Americas oppose both the renaming and Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.On both Google and Apple’s map apps, while US users see Lake America, international users continue to see Lake Ontario.MapQuest, meanwhile, framed its refusal as a product decision to preserve names familiar to its users rather than automatically conform to the federal change.Burgum issued a directive the same day as Trump’s ex...