MapQuest hits No. 1 on the US App Store after refusing Lake Ontario rename

MapQuest, the mapping brand many assumed had quietly disappeared, is now the No. 1 app on the US App Store. According to TechCrunch, the veteran service reached the top spot across both apps and games on Tuesday, capping a climb that took just days and began the moment it publicly refused to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”

The trigger was an executive order signed by President Trump on August 27, which directed the US geographic naming service to adopt the new name amid his ongoing trade push. MapQuest announced on X that it would not make the change. Google Maps complied, and Apple Maps followed. Consumers responded by downloading MapQuest in large numbers, apparently as a show of support for the company's stance.

From No. 128 to No. 1

TechCrunch traces the ranking movement in detail: MapQuest sat at No. 128 on August 28, rose to No. 92 the following day, and reached No. 3 on Monday, August 31, when it also led the Navigation category. The same report elsewhere cites No. 8 for Monday's overall rank, so the exact figure for that day differs between passages. By Tuesday, the app held the No. 1 position overall.

Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates roughly 632,000 US downloads since the order was issued. MapQuest puts the figure higher, telling TechCrunch it has recorded more than 1.5 million installs across the US and Canada combined.

The growth is stark by any measure. Sensor Tower's data shows 56% of MapQuest's year-to-date US downloads occurred between August 27 and September 1, with daily installs up 123% day over day during that window and running more than 50 times higher than the same period a year earlier.

MapQuest says the influx goes beyond passive installs. “People aren't just installing our app — they care enough to communicate directly with us,” GM Doug Berger told TechCrunch by email, describing feature requests and bug reports arriving through social media and app reviews. He said the small team has been working around the clock to build the features new users are asking for.

Why the bigger platforms complied

Google explained its decision last week, saying it updates names on its maps to reflect changes in official government sources such as the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) in the US. Apple did not comment, though TechCrunch reports it likely follows the same guidelines. Deferring to official records is the conventional posture for large mapping platforms; MapQuest, a much smaller player, has more freedom to break with convention.

Nor is this MapQuest's first such stand. The service still labels the Gulf of Mexico with its original name rather than “Gulf of America,” and it released a tongue-in-cheek online tool that lets visitors rename Lake Ontario to anything they like and share the result on social media.

A comeback decades in the making

MapQuest was once the original mapping application before ceding its crown to Google Maps. It is now owned by System1, an internet advertising company that acquired the property from Verizon in 2019. Verizon, in turn, had bought AOL — MapQuest's initial acquirer — in 2015.

Why it matters

The episode is a rare case of a data-labeling decision — which name appears on a lake — becoming a mass consumer event. It shows how politicized geographic naming has become, and how quickly public sentiment can translate into App Store rankings when a small company takes a position its larger rivals will not.

Whether the surge lasts is the open question. Protest-driven downloads do not guarantee retained users, and MapQuest says it is working overtime to convert goodwill into a good product experience. The split between MapQuest's approach and the official-source policy of Google and Apple also previews a choice every mapping platform will face the next time a government renames a place.