It’s 2026 and everything late 90s and early 2000s is cool again. Apparently including MapQuest.
The self-proclaimed ‘OG of online maps” has risen to the fourth most downloaded free program in Apple’s App Store in the U.S. It is the most downloaded Apple app in Canada and the 21st most popular free app in the Google Play Store, according to AppFigures.
MapQuest’s renaissance comes after the free online mapping service wrote several posts saying it would continue to designate the easternmost Great Lake as “Lake Ontario.” The move overturns the Trump administration’s executive order on Thursday that “immediately” renamed the water body between New York and Ontario.More of America” in the official federal government place name database.
Google Maps changed the name of the lake for US users on Sunday, while Apple Maps has – until now – retained the Ontario moniker.
That could change, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business “Mornings with Maria” on Mondays. Trump “has reached out to Apple directly,” he said, adding that we should expect app updates “soon.”
In 2025, Apple and Google both updated their map labels, changing the name Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’ following a similar executive order.
MapQuest, which started in 1996, became popular before smartphones became widespread. American families could ask the computer-based service for turn-by-turn directions to a destination hours away and then print them out before hitting the road. AOL bought the service in 2000 for $1.1 billion.
It quickly became obsolete as GPS-enabled phones became more popular, giving drivers on-the-spot directions even if they took a wrong turn. Google Maps surpassed MapQuest in popularity in 2008.
The legacy platform told Business Insider that it initially decided to keep the Gulf of Mexico name “as a joke about the fact that we’re so old that we don’t know how to update our maps.”
Now MapQuest says usage has increased 50 times and the name of both water bodies will not change.
“People were talking to their downloads,” said Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest. “They want a mapping app with names they know.”
Google Maps is now the 19th most popular Apple app in America, 14 places behind MapQuest.
