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MapQuest's app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario (techcrunch.com)
submitted 15 hours ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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MapQuest stood up to President Donald Trump, and now its app is reaping the rewards.

The “OG of online mapping,” as the company calls itself, announced on Thursday that it would not change the name of Lake Ontario on its maps to Lake America, despite Trump’s executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. As a result, MapQuest’s mobile app downloads soared, sending the iOS app to the No. 4 position on the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts for apps (not including games) as of Monday morning on the U.S. east coast.

MapQuest also reached the No. 8 position overall in the U.S. App Store across both apps and games, and it became the No. 1 Navigation app in the United States.

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[–] 80 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (5 children)

OpenStreetMap also has it as Lake Ontario:

They also have navigation called OSMAnd.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    It's actually more interesting than this. Open Street Map has a long history of supporting multiple names for the same place. There seems to have been a bit of an edit war since the executive order was issued, but as of now we have <tag k="name" v="Lake Ontario"/> and <tag k="official_name:en-US" v="Lake America"/>. There are also 36 other name tags, mostly listing the name of the lake in different languages. I initially assumed that all those others were added in the last couple of days as a way to sort of protest by taking the whole thing to an absurd level. But the change log actually shows that 27 of them were already in the tags long before the executive order was issued. And honestly, I like it this way better. Instead of making Trumps announcement big to the point of absurdity, OSM has made it small to the point of inconsequence. Trump said he wanted to change the name of the lake, and OSM said "sure, whatever, your name for it can be number 28 on the list of names that people have for it. And actually, while we're on the topic, it looks like we missed a few. Lets throw on 8 more to make sure everyone is represented."

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  • [–] 23 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    Here in the You Knighted States of Murica, we ain’t gon use no OSAMA maps app

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  • [–] 9 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

    But I'd argue comaps is better

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  • [–] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 child)

    In my experience OsmAnd is way better than Comaps.

    In OsmAnd I can type in a business name or an address and not only will it bring up the correct address but it will allow me to navigate. I can do neither in Comaps. Also OsmAnd has CarPlay/Android Auto support with the paid version.

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  • [–] 2 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

    Haven't tried it, but it's based on OpenStreetMap, so I guess it also calls it Lake Ontario.
    Why is comaps better?

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  • [–] 5 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    Completely free and open source, simpler UI for anyone to get into imo

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (1 child)

    I thought OSMAND was Open Source too.
    I never paid anything for using it.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (2 children)

    Needs Android Auto support

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  • [–] 1 point 12 hours ago

    I haven't tried comaps, so maybe it has similar features, but the OsmAnd profiles and plugins are great. Driving, hiking, biking, walking, basically any form of transportation can be used and with plugins and overlays show info pertinent to each method while excluding extraneous info.

    And if you get it from fdroid or compile it yourself(?) it's the pro version with more features for free.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago (2 children)

    Is OsmAnd legit? It's not from OSM directly from what I recall

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  • [–] 3 points 10 hours ago

    Worst product name ever.

    Also, crappy app too. I appreciate that they are trying, but it has been crap for years.

    Tried it again a few months ago. The spoken navigation wounded like it just huffed a can of butane. Real low, slow and fucked up sounding.

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