Here in the US, we’re dealing with a President who capriciously tears down historic buildings, paves over rose gardens, insults allies, and regularly renames map landmarks, locations, and even gulfs and lakes like he’s picking out names for his often poorly used golf clubs. It would be entertaining if it weren’t all so incomprehensible. The only thing that’s tougher to swallow is when seemingly rational tech giants fall in line and rename these locations right along with him.
After US President Donald Trump renamed one of the five Great Lakes, Lake Ontario, to “Lake America” over an ongoing trade war (that he started) with Canada, Google rather quickly renamed the 193-mile-wide lake on Google Maps. For a time, Apple Maps appeared to be holding out, only to swap out the name on Tuesday.
As I derided the move, some reminded me that Apple and Google derive their map details and names from a centrally managed USGS, or US Geological Survey. In other words, if the President makes an executive order, the USGS falls into line and changes the map, and those who use it as a
Maybe, though, I’d argue that Google, and especially Apple, which changed its CEO on Monday, had an opportunity to hold the line. On the other hand, look south and central on Apple Maps and Google Maps, and you’ll quickly spot the “Gulf of America.’ Trump changed that one from the Gulf of Mexico because, “‘Merica!”
One map app stood alone
There is, however, a voice of reason in all this: the upstart online mapping service known as MapQuest. It not only refused to change its map, but also has been quite vocal and cheeky about it. In one X post, the mapping company said not only were they not renaming it (they similarly have not renamed the Gulf of Mexico), but they were letting users have some fun by applying their own silly name to the huge body of water that is literally split across its midsection by the border between the US and Canada.
MapQuest’s defiance has paid dividends. It is, as I write this, the number one freely downloadable app in the App Store. I even downloaded it, a sort of return from me after abandoning MapQuest almost 20 years ago.
Like Apple and Google Maps, MapQuest also gets its mapping data from the USGS, along with other data sources, but MapQuest General Manager Doug Berger told meiliar with. Millions of people have shown us they agree across social media and by installing our app.”
MapQuest’s meteoric rise, though, isn’t built on a history of, at least recently, market dominance. In fact, I’d argue that, until recently, many consumers had either never heard of it or hadn’t used the platform in a very long time. Of course, it wasn’t always that way.
Back in the 1990s, MapQuest was not one of many online mapping services; it was THE mapping choice. It was on virtually every top 50 website list, and most of those who’ve been online for a few decades remember printing out MapQuest routes for all of our trips. Before turn-by-turn navigation on your iPhone, there were pages and pages of turn-by-turn instructions from MapQuest. There was great comfort in sliding into your car for a long or even mid-range trip and knowing you had the MapQuest route on the seat beside you. Berger told me approximately 1 million customers a month still print their directions.
What happened to MapQuest? AOL bought them for over $1 billion in the late 1990s, and then Google Maps arrived in 2005. MapQuest seemed to have no answer for the Google Maps juggernaut, as the world shifted to screen-based routes on their iPhones and Androids.
MapQuest is now owned by a smaller company, System1, and its ambitions mostly seem to lie around being the outlier. It’s an effective mapping tool, but with none of the buzz or ubiquity that Google, Apple, and Waze enjoy.
Not without this
Say what you will about Google and Apple making the lake name switch, but they remain world-class mapping platforms. MapQuest feels not exactly quaint, but a little odd.
Still, I bet I could get used to the clunkier interface, but I still can’t stick with MapQuest because it’s missing what I consider a critical feature: Transit directions. Google Maps has had them since 2007, while the later-arriving and initially terrible Apple Maps finally added them in 2015.
Working in New York City, I rely heavily on the subway to navigate the 13.4-mile-long city. Google Maps and Apple Maps have rich and detailed transit directions filled with options and other details, like which subway exits to use.
When I travel abroad, Google Maps and Apple Maps offer transit directions in virtually any city that has a rail system.
This is not the case with MapQuest
I gave MapQuest a simple test: get me from Penn Station to my midtown office (I also tried the route from my suburban home to my office). It shows walking, biking, and driving directions, but nothing about the subway (there’s a 1 train or the N, W, R, or Q lines I could take).
A modern competitive map must cover rail and mass transit options, and MapQuest doesn’t.
When I asked MapQuest’s Berger about the missing feature, he acknowledged it but added, “To date, we’ve been focused on providing the best directions and navigation experience. We’ve heard people loud and clear that they want Transit to be added.” There is, Berger admitted, no timeline for adding a transit feature.
I hate that we have someone willy-nilly renaming global landmarks because he thinks he can, and I was thrilled to see MapQuest taking a stand, but I really need transit directions in my map app, and without them, MapQuest still isn’t my navigation solution.
