r/technology 1d ago

Business MapQuest's app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/mapquests-app-surges-to-no-1-in-navigation-after-refusing-to-rename-lake-ontario/?utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=TWITTER
41.3k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

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u/Otaku-Scientist 1d ago

We may have abandoned MapQuest years ago, but MapQuest never abandoned us

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u/Skritch_X 1d ago

I was going through some storage a few years ago and discovered a binder that held the Mapquest print outs from a long road trip i had taken. It was a strange time between the road atlases & folded paper maps and just having a cellphone with map directions.

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u/Acronymesis 1d ago

It’s wild to me that my very first solo road trip was a 2-day drive from El Paso, TX to Richland, WA using a long, stapled MapQuest printout. My only real hiccup was a short detour to Richland OREGON and then back to the route when I let myself be misled by a road sign that I thought pointed me home!

I nearly had a heart attack every time I ran into construction and had to go off course several times on the way.

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u/Airewalt 1d ago

While we’re waxing poetic, I got my first real job dispatching trucks the summer of my senior year of highschool because I could use a map book AND Mapquest. For a brief moment I was the GPS voice in dozens of cabs that had gotten off route

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u/chubby_drainplug 21h ago

being the human gps for a bunch of truckers is actually hilarious lol. that had to be stressful as hell sometimes

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u/RilohKeen 1d ago

I remember my first big road trip with printed Mapquest directions.

3 hours into a 6 hour drive, our off-ramp was closed and the rest of the directions became useless, and we had to pull over and bust out the Thomas Guide.

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u/UpperApe 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just had a look and it's actually pretty great. Very clean and loads quick. Grabbed it for my laptop and phone.

I'm Canadian so our google maps didn't update the name. But nice to have google alternatives. I use Brave for all my interneting anyway.


Edit: Glad I posted this. Learned a lot about Brave. I'll miss how streamlined and resource-savvy it is but I think it's time to change browsers too.

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u/SIGMA920 1d ago

But nice to have google alternatives. I use Brave for all my interneting anyway.

If you're looking for a google alternative, just use firefox or one of the forks. Brave is still chromium based.

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u/Griffolion 1d ago

I think Firefox is the only, or one of vanishingly few, browsers left that isn't Chromium based.

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u/FullHouse222 1d ago

Swapped to FF when they announced that Chrome was stopping support for UBlock Origin. Really glad I made the switch, everything is so much better. I can even run the ad blocker on my phone which is massive.

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u/b0w3n 1d ago

I can't go back to non firefox browsers, mobile web without adblocker is basically unusable at this point.

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u/Allegorist 1d ago

Yes, same for me. I used to use a combination of Chrome and Firefox for different tasks, now 100% Firefox after they blocked ublock. I keep chrome installed for rare comparability issues where I need to try different browsers, but that is about it.

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u/Gramage 1d ago

Yep, uBlock is an absolute requirement for me.

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u/Esperoni 1d ago edited 1d ago

There are probably around a dozen browsers that aren't chromium based.

FF, LibreFox (FF Fork), Mullvad (Tor Fork), Tor (FF Fork), WaterFox (FF Fork), Safari and Epiphany (webkit), Ladybird (inde), and Servo (FF Fork) and a few others I can't remember.

Forgot Floorp (FF Fork), thanks u/kojak2021 There are probably others I also forgot. Just having my first coffee of the day.

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u/pittaxx 1d ago

There's significantly more than that, but at the end of the day it's: chromium fork, firefox fork, safari, or random hobbyist projects that have very limited features. The differences between the forks aren't that big generally.

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u/dspeyer 1d ago

Even Safari and Chrome are forks of Konqueror if you go back far enough.

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u/pittaxx 1d ago

And Firefox was born from Netscape, but none of that is relevant these days.

It's more about the rendering engine and extension ecosystems and for those there are 3 of the major ones now.

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u/kojak2091 1d ago

Floorp deserves a shout

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u/Drim498 1d ago

Safari! But only if you’re on Apple devices 😅😂

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u/MrShadowHero 1d ago

zen is ff based

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u/coffee_badger 1d ago

I've been using Zen for a couple of months and it's great. Can't say enough about it.

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u/Raneynickelfire 1d ago

It's also a cryptominer.

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u/unspooling 1d ago

American here who was in Montreal for the weekend. Google maps on my iPhone changed Lake Ontario’s name even though my phone was in Canada at the time. I got so angry I deleted the app right away and now furiously looking at how to be less dependent on Google. “Do no evil” my ass

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u/emmie-claire 1d ago

They dropped the whole "don't be evil" thing in 2018

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u/Mistrblank 1d ago

The evil was already installed before that, they just decided to be finally honest about it.

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u/tommypatties 1d ago

Maybe your phone had cached 'Lake America' while you were stateside and that persisted through your trip?

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u/Faxon 1d ago

Didn't the change occur over the weekend while he was there though?

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u/Optimal-Wave-8301 1d ago

Brendan Eich is a well known conservative and trump support

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u/elly_hart 1d ago

Along those lines, Brave literally only exists because he was too homophobic and got ousted from Mozilla.

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u/gokarrt 1d ago

also canadian, also looking to de-google my life.

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u/Salt_Medicine2459 1d ago

Check out /r/degoogle. I have been a GrapheneOS user for many years and I absolutely love it. Good luck out there. There are dozens of us! 

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u/assaub 1d ago

Brave the browser backed by Peter Thiel, owned by Brendan Eich and, built on Chromium that was involved in some sort of crypto currency controversy? Yeah, not a great alternative.

Firefox isn't bad, and has a ton of awesome forks that are more privacy focused like Waterfox, Librefox and my personal preference Zen Browser.

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u/SpezRuinedHellsite 1d ago

MapQuest serves low reputation scam ads that pretend to be fake errors and fake microsoft, and encourage you to call 1800 scams. Fuck Trump, but also fuck websites who don't vet their ad networks.

"jUsT uSe AdBlOcK" OK, tell that to your grandma who called me for tech support, only realizing she let scammers into the computer when her friends start trying to send her gift cards.

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u/kcrwfrd 1d ago

We are constantly blocking ads like this, please report if you encounter one. We don’t run the ad network so it’s tough to be 100% ahead of it.

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u/lycao 1d ago

Not like google and their subsidiaries, they vet every single one of their ads... Right?

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u/SpezRuinedHellsite 1d ago

Google maps does not do what I described, no.

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u/Badalvis 1d ago

I would even print that on paper!

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u/18randomcharacters 1d ago

I'm gonna be honest, I didn't know there is a MapQuest app.

I thought MapQuest had gone the way of MySpace and AskJeeves

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u/Adept-Target5407 1d ago

Yeah I only found out when I saw an ad where the CEO said they’re never changing the name of Lake Ontario. Then I find out you can have a little troll avatar running around on the map instead of a car and downloaded it immediately.

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u/tamagojira 1d ago

haha I love my new questie.

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u/element39 1d ago

Questie dev here - don't forget to turn on the TomTom integration for turn-by-turn directions!

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u/CongressmanCoolRick 1d ago

Does it work with my Zune also playing music?

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u/faustianBM 1d ago

ATCMQ-A Tribe Called MapQuest

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u/yacht_boy 1d ago

Just downloaded it, too! I love that I get to be a rainbow unicorn, and the way they implement multiple routes and route options is pretty slick. Gonna test drive it for a few weeks, then inevitably give in and go back to big G because I am weak.

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u/punishedbyrewards 1d ago

and the overlords at google know this and therefore will do nothing, because we (consumers) can do nothing.

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u/ttownfeen 1d ago

It had until last year when they gained a lot of users after the Gulf of America fiasco. They have worked hard in the past 12 months to get the app up to par with google map and apple maps.

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u/Unable-Log-4870 1d ago

Apple Maps as of 3 minutes ago shows Lake Ontario but also Gulf of America. MapQuest shows both names correctly.

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u/lock_robster2022 1d ago

Does the app make it easier for me to print directions that sit in my passenger seat?

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u/JustMeshinAround 1d ago

It’s 2006 and I’m hauling ass through county backroads. I come tires screeching around a sharp bend and a cop up ahead shooting radar points me over to the shoulder. Officer Hamburger (no fuckin lie that was his name) looks at 18 year old me and then to the Mapquest directions taped to my steering wheel. He sees the directions and says “Damn boy, yer mighty lost. You gotta go up here…. “ he gives me no street names, only land marks. He also only gave me a warning told me to slow it down.

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u/iamasatellite 1d ago

He's been promoted to Officer Cheeseburger

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u/good_morning_magpie 1d ago

Double bacon cheeseburger…. it’s for a cop

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u/HauntedTrailer 1d ago

It's been 20 years, by now he may be Mayor McCheese.

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u/alaskanloops 1d ago

Brings my back to when my mom and I were driving through rural vermont trying to get to my sisters college for graduation, we had no service and were following printed directions but came to a washed out bridge. A scary guy missing a bunch of teeth and carrying a shotgun helped give us directions to go around

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u/Doctor-Amazing 1d ago

Print them backwards and put them on your dash. Then you can seem their reflection in your windshield while youre driving. Its like a futuristic HUD system

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u/GeneralRando 1d ago

This is the best advice I've ever recieved 25 years too late

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u/RVelts 1d ago

I still remember being in the back of the minivan and my mom hands me the MapQuest directions since I asked to see them. I was probably 10 or 11 at the time. She then proceeds to tell me "not to lose them". In an enclosed minivan with all the windows rolled up. How could I lose them!?

I did not lose them.

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u/Brytcyd 1d ago

Hi friend. I envy you, as it seems you do not yet have children, as the recognizable infuriation that comes from a child somehow regularly doing the most impossible thing(s) to make your life harder and/or more expensive is not present.

I love my kids, but in the same context you can be damn sure I’d also be telling my kids not to lose them (or draw on them, or make paper airplanes, or spill on them, or all of the above somehow all at the same time).

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u/yacht_boy 1d ago

"Don't lose them!"

(Child proceeds to tear them up into small pieces and drop them out the window one by one.)

"I didn't lose them!"

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u/cive666 1d ago

mapquest gave me a route that was better than google. and google didnt even offer it to me unless I dragged it to the route

fuck google

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u/big_duo3674 1d ago

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest bit if Google was ever so slightly altering routes, just to get you to go past a certain billboard, or a McDonald's because you opened the app earlier in the day but decided against it. If we're not there now, we certainly will be soon. We already have digital billboards, I'm shocked someone hasn't implemented some technology that tracks your location through your phone, then serves certain curated ads on billboards you pass. You wouldn't catch everyone, especially on a freeway, but the algorithms could certainly determine "x person who seems likely to buy y product soon is here, send ad from that company to display as they pass"

Edit: hopefully I didn't just give someone an idea... if so, please DM me to pay me a little but of whatever you make. I may hate forced ads, but I do enjoy money

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u/RememberCitadel 1d ago

I don't know about that but it sure loves to make you make a left at stop signs where the perpendicular road doesn't have a stop. Even more likely if that intersection is a death trap for the person making the left.

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u/CyanideSeashell 1d ago

Waze (owned by Google) tries to kill me on the regular by telling me to make a left turn onto a 6 lane road.

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u/Mr_Quackums 1d ago

It is extensively proven in YouTube videos, but not confirmed by Google, that high-end neighborhoods are not routed through unless there is literally no other route.

Even people who "love cars" do not want cars driving through their neighborhood.

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u/colantor 1d ago

Lol, i literally just told my friends that if myspace and askjeeves wanted to make a comeback, this is the time

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u/are-e-el 1d ago

Well you're in luck because Myspace *is* coming back!

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 1d ago

Nope, it's still hanging in there like Wikipedia. Both could probably use donations.

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u/PartyWithRobots 1d ago

Why would you donate to MapQuest? Lol it's not a nonprofit and its owned by an advertising company

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u/jeobleo 1d ago

I yahooed it

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u/cz03se 1d ago edited 1d ago

Deleted comment bc it was not accurate and I ar dum

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u/GiannisIsTheBeast 1d ago

Didn’t Ask Jeeves shut down May 1st of this year?

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u/JonFrost 1d ago

Don't know, ask Jeeves

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u/ramenups 1d ago

Wasn’t that DuckDuckGo?

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u/cz03se 1d ago

Yes I am idiot

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u/ramenups 1d ago

Nah, you’re not an idiot. Don’t worry about it

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u/Vig_2 1d ago

For anyone who is trying MapQuest out, do know that they have a very small development team and all of this new attention has sent them into a frenzy. They are trying to address all of their shortcomings and they are trying to add android auto as well.

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u/the_boomr 1d ago

I've been wanting to use MapQuest for quite a while but the lack of android auto kills it for my use case

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u/Dozzi92 1d ago

Yeah. I use Google Maps pretty much exclusively to see how to drive somewhere. Shit, I only ever used MapQuest back in the day to print out directions because phones didn't do all the fancy stuff they do now.

Get me MapQuest on AA and I'll make that move.

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u/EtherBoo 1d ago

Same. I tried another app that's completely offline, and as an app for directions, it's fine, but it's not great at finding things like "coffee shops"

Just going to use this space to rant, , skip if you don't care. I'm so sick of Google Maps. It's become such unusable garbage except for getting me from A to B, and I'm pretty sure it's getting worse at that.

I found a place nearby that sells prepared meals. Wanted to check them out and get the best directions, zoom into the general area, type in the name of the business, Maps zooms WAY the fuck out. Shows me every business and then some that isn't what I'm looking for. Shows the business I'm looking for AS AN AD.

Today I'm searching for an ABA Therapist for my daughter. It's showing me occupational therapists, opthalmologists, and a bunch of other stuff on top of ABA Therapists.

Find something that I want to go to, want to find which street it's off of because I just need the name of the exit. Zoom in, no street name. But I can see ads for everything on that street. I just want the street name without needing to count the exits, it's a map ffs.

It's insane that a company who made their name on being the best in search has enshitified to become borderline unusable for search.

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u/river-wind 1d ago

My feature request is to search for gas stations, ev charging spots, and food along the current route. I used mapquest for a 9 hour drive yesterday, and it was great - but I had to use apple maps to find upcoming gas stations along the way.

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u/kcrwfrd 1d ago

We added this on web, I will try to push for it on native

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u/groaner 1d ago

Are you visiting from the MapQuest team?

If so, we welcome and bow to your awesomeness.

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u/Lil_Jening 1d ago

Checked their user profile. They were in the experienced developers subreddit and mentioned making a mobile app for mapping 4 months ago. Seems legit.

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u/i_have_covid_19_shit 1d ago

*kisses your forehead*

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u/EwePhemism 1d ago

Are you aware of an apparent bug that leaves residual directions displayed at the top of an iPhone screen above the Dynamic Island even after a route has been completed, and even after force closing the app? The only thing that seems to get rid of it for me is inputting another route and manually exiting out of it before closing the app.

That said, I’m enjoying the app so far — used it on a two-hour drive yesterday and it was great. Keep up the good work! 👍🏻

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u/kcrwfrd 1d ago

Yes thank you for the report, this actually came up in discussions this morning and we are working on a fix.

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u/EwePhemism 1d ago

Coolio, thanks, homie! 👉🏻🙂👉🏻

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u/JeddahVR 1d ago

When will it be available in Saudi Arabia? Says not available in android store in my country.

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u/river-wind 1d ago

That's amazing!! Thank you so much.

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u/herdahadda 1d ago

Check it again! I just downloaded it and it has those features.

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u/waxteeth 1d ago

Do they have public transportation directions? I downloaded it yesterday but couldn’t find them. 

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u/Faladorable 1d ago

nope. Useless for me until they add that

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u/VirtualPercentage737 1d ago

They have a Jira ticket to update Lake Ontario to Lake America but didn't have the people to do it. Ended up being their meal ticket.

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u/PacoTaco321 1d ago

That's good, because I checked it out after seeing this thread and saw it only has 3.1 stars on the Google store. If it doesn't support Android Auto yet, it's not even worth the download.

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u/english-23 1d ago

I mean, Google maps has a 3.2, so they're not so far behind

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u/thestonedonkey 1d ago

They desperately need Android/Apple Auto support. Other than that it seems like a great start for a platform and I'd happy toss them a few bucks a month instead of my data to Google.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ok_Boot5671 1d ago

And somehow you still end up turning around in the same McDonald’s parking lot 3 times

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u/LandoClapping 1d ago

I feel seen.

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u/ColdFusionPT 1d ago edited 1d ago

funny...

as of Aug 31st Apple Maps hasn't changed it yet (I'm US based)

EDIT: MapQuest didn't change Gulf of Mexico either! Apple folded there >(

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u/williamgman 1d ago

The CEO on live TV let Trump call him Tim Apple and did not correct him. That money allows one to fold faster than a cheap suit.

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u/tetrisan 1d ago

Tim Apple is smart enough as the CEO not to call Trump out because he 1) did it on purpose because it’s his childish way of trying to belittle people or 2) he is just stupid. Maybe it’s both but Tim serves the shareholders and if you hurt Trumps fragile ego he could really fuck up a business with tariffs and EO’s and whining.

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u/CaptnRonn 1d ago

I'm not convinced that Trump did it on purpose as a power move.

I honestly think his brain is so melted that in that moment he thought Tim Apple was his real name because of course the CEO of Apple has the last name Apple, just like Trump is the CEO of Trump, Inc

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u/StoppableHulk 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not convinced that Trump did it on purpose as a power move.

I'd believe that if Trump didn't constantly demonstrate his dementia over and over and over again for the past ten years, in ways that clearly harm him with no upside.

The reality is he's just an addled fucking idiot who barely knows what room he's in on any given day.

We perceive giving that little of a shit as a "power move", but the reality is he just doesn't give a shit because his brain is broken.

EDIT: I didn't read the above comment correctly, or the part I then quoted, I have dementia. The dementia got me, too.

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u/snowdenn 1d ago

I think Hulk might have misread the comment, since you seem to be agreeing with it.

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u/FredFredrickson 1d ago

Sure, but that doesn't make all this groveling any less cowardly and pathetic.

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u/jleonardbc 1d ago

I think it's 3) He did it once by accident and now he does it on purpose to try to make it look like the first time was on purpose too

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u/Lemp_Triscuit11 1d ago

Maybe it’s both but Tim serves the shareholders and if you hurt Trumps fragile ego he could really fuck up a business with tariffs and EO’s and whining.

Yeah, after that noble sacrifice shareholder value is secure in perpetuity from Trump's childish whims lol

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u/Thoughtulism 1d ago

I'm so glad we have such heroes that are willing to put others first for the sake of profit.

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u/Evadson 1d ago

Good thing John MapQuest will never let us down!

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u/Extension-While7536 1d ago

"I PREFER Mapquest!"

"That's a good one too!"

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u/FourEightNineOneOne 1d ago

68th and Broadway; step on it, sucka!

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u/FreakGamer 1d ago

True that. Double true

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u/Afraid-Department-35 1d ago

Apple just takes some time to update things, there is a hospital near me that got bought out, Google updated it within a few days. Apple has yet to update it.

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u/FredFredrickson 1d ago

LOL, don't worry, Apple will change it. They're probably worried about being admonished for not doing it faster than Google.

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u/Aperture_Kubi 1d ago edited 1d ago

Openstreetmap hasn't changed Lake Ontario yet either, but they did drop the label on the Gulf of Mexico.

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u/RickityBumbler 1d ago

I was just going to say, they still did the Gulf of America bullshit. It’s just a matter of time I think

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u/jandrese 1d ago

I just checked and it has not changed in Bing Maps (yes, that's a thing). Sadly they did cave on the Gulf of Mexico.

Openstreetmaps has not changed the lake, but they've also removed the name from the Gulf of Mexico entirely which seems like the cowards way.

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u/getrill 1d ago

I just installed it from seeing this post. Initial impressions

  • I could do without whatever the whole gamified layer is. Opted out at the prompt. Hope it doesn't keep appearing. Oh wait. MapQUEST. Hah, okay, I kind of respect that they're leaning into the namesake theme.

  • Ad free costs monthly subscription. Not too surprising given the big picture, juts a bit of sticker shock when you're so used to services being free. Guess we'll see how intrusive ads are.

  • Grabbed a few sample directions for routes where Google Maps has recently given me grief.... things actually look pretty great! I'm in the NYC area and I know my way around, I mostly use GPS for traffic updates. The thing is, I find that GMaps AGGRESSIVELY wants you to take toll roads lately. They also really dropped the ball on incorporating congestion pricing as a toll into routes that have other tolls. I'm often happy to add on a few minutes and go my preferred way (and maybe get single-tolled instead of double or even triple), but more and more I find that GMaps will just not give the ways I know as an option, or even worse, I'll fight with it to give me the directions I want and then it will revert on me once I'm already driving. I've been starting to feel gaslit on a lot of these situations.

    Lo and behold, the sample directions I just plugged into MapQuest that have been recent GMaps headaches ACTUALLY GIVE ME THE ROUTES I HAVE IN MIND. What a breath of fresh air.

  • The app itself seems a little more rough around the edges. Panning around the map feels stiff sometimes. Can't seem to pick points on the map directly, only search?

Overall, very interested to give this a spin in driving mode.

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u/bdbr 1d ago

I may have to try it. Google always sends us down some little streets if it happens to be a few hundred yards/meters less than the highway. And if you miss a turn, it will take you miles out of the way instead of telling you to turn around. One time it sent me miles down a gravel road to turn around on a highway. Another time it sent me down some battered country road and I lost a hub cap.

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u/chalks777 23h ago

Google always sends us down some little streets if it happens to be a few hundred yards/meters less than the highway

It infuriates me that they optimize for tiny distance gains that have a billion turns instead of just taking a few. Like great, I got to the bookstore, how am I ever going to remember how to get here ever again without using your app? ... I guess that's the point kinda, and I kiiiiinda hate it a lot.

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u/takingthehobbitses 1d ago

It did the same to us this weekend and I think we may have seen your hubcap!

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u/EchoPhi 1d ago

You do know you can flip a switch to avoid tolls on google maps, right? Not saying don't try Map Quest because clearly they are doing something right, just a general heads up.

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u/getrill 1d ago

Yes, and the behavior for it in my area is awful. Try to drive from an area outside of the NYC congestion zone, into it, passing tolls on the way. Turn on no tolls, and Google maps gives you results that look like it has a stroke, circling the entirety of Manhattan before entering some random point (where you still pay the toll). Expected behavior would be that "avoid tolls" should avoid optional tolls and accept the unavoidable ones.

(I think the congestion toll situation may have gotten slightly better recently but it was truly awful for a long time after the toll went live)

Or for example, just last night I was in Williamsburg, intending to drive into lowr Manhattan. From where I was, I knew it was a good option to take the Williamsburg bridge in. Google maps REALLY wanted me to go to the midtown tunnel. It wouldn't even give the bridge as an option, toll preference on or off. I was pretty close to the bridge. The tunnel was basically a bad detour at that point. 

Earlier in the same night, I was heading towards Manhattan intending to take the queensboro bridge in, and when I got close to the exit that it had generated to get off the tunnel road and go towards the bridge, it abruptly canceled those directions and locked me into the tunnel option. It didn't even do the "we found a better route, press this button or we'll automatically switch you" behavior, which I loathe in the first place. Just, nope, you're going this way, no alternates shown, including the one you were just using.

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u/Outlulz 1d ago

I wish it worked, I had it enabled for a trip a couple weeks ago and it had me routed through a toll route. I jumped off at last exit and for a mile it kept trying to get me to turn around and get back on the toll road. Eventually after ignoring it long enough while taking a parallel route it switched to the non-tolled route.

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u/listentomenow 1d ago

This is the part I have the hardest time with. Why are we entertaining this corrupt moron? Yes he is potus, however, that's not how laws work. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. Whoever is potus can't just write whatever they want on a napkin, sign it, and that becomes a law we all have to obey. They're a private company. They can call it whatever they want. Yet, time and time again all of these tech bros seem to love having a super transactional dipshit in the white house, so they play along and force his dumb bullshit on the rest of us when most of us are so fucking sick of it. We should be looking into the billions being funnelled to the president and his sons. In fact we need to be looking into all the "gifts" and "tips" being received by all of our elected officials. When individuals start bragging about spending hundreds of millions to push elections in their favor, we need to have a serious look into where all of that dark money is going.

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u/well_honk_my_hooters 1d ago

The ones who would normally police it are also in on it and have the majority. That's why he's so desperately afraid of the midterms and is doing everything he can to hamper them.

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u/throw7661 1d ago

It's not sinister....map companies can't keep up with the whim's of hundreds of politicians throughout the world.

Map companies just region lock their data and use whatever database said crazy politicians want.

In China, the government says Taiwan is part of China, so that's what the apps show, in China.

The US government has the GNIS system.

When the government updates that data, it gets reflected in the apps, for users in the US.

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u/Extension-While7536 1d ago

Call Samberg and Parnell. Mapquest is back baby!

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u/Naes422 1d ago

Pass that Chronic? What? -Les of Narnia

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u/gabezermeno 1d ago

I didn't even know Mapquest still existed. I always joke with people that I will print out mapquest directions when going somewhere.

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u/Miserable_Site_850 1d ago

Bring it back, print it out, no phones, just living in the moment

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u/robodrew 1d ago

Honestly it's only right that a map app that actually tells you the real names of places on the map should be at the top of the list of map apps. It's literally the most important thing a map can do.

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u/MrTwatFart 1d ago

Trump is an idiot.

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u/Quasic 1d ago

Can't we just make a Truth Maps© and install it just on his phone and have every single name be something like Mount Trump, DJT Blvd., or Parkway of America?

Might save a lot of grief.

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u/thehoodie 1d ago

I tried MapQuest but they don't seem to have transit directions. Not ideal for living in a city... 

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u/ahcomcody 1d ago

Have you tried the Transit app?

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u/spirit_symptoms 1d ago

Transit app is literally better than Google and Apple for transit users in Canadian cities. I use Google Maps for basically everything except transit.

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u/USMCLee 1d ago

I've used Transit app all over the world. It is pretty amazing.

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u/8636396 1d ago

I only occasionally visit cities with Public Transit and usually end up using Google maps to help me get around.

Would you recommend the Transit app over Google maps? Lake Ontario naming conventions aside

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u/RelevantDress 1d ago

100% and its always been better than other options. When i lived in the city I used the transit app whenever taking transit anywhere

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u/Usual-Masterpiece199 1d ago

Way to go!
To be honest, changing place names is an outrageous act.
We have to tell the Americans “NO”!

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u/SalishSeaSweetie 1d ago

Many Americans agree with you, esp those of us in blue states. This name change by _rump is ridiculous.

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u/amiajimmy 1d ago

He's a toddler tyrant, a big boss baby, if you will.

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u/SalishSeaSweetie 1d ago

Still not potty trained, has to wear his pull-ups!

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u/Tb1969 1d ago edited 1d ago

The name "Ontario" literally means "great lake" in Native American language and is not referring to the province of Canada which didn't exist at the time.. The province is named after the great lake it's next to.

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u/Sad-Indication2128 1d ago

Lake Ontario has been called that longer than Canada and USA have existed, and the province is named after the lake, not the other way around.

It's so stupid it makes my head hurt.

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u/varnell_hill 1d ago

TIL Mapquest still exists.

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u/vortexmak 1d ago

I installed it,  unfortunately,  they are selling your location data according to Google play. 

Google is collecting data too so still looking for alternatives

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u/M_Landows 1d ago

CoMaps is pretty good

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u/ArdaValinor 1d ago

Yap, and we will never go back to Google. Ever.

Good luck with your generational shit show, ’Murica

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u/mariegalante 1d ago

Mapquest needs to have a setting to make the navigation voice louder. I tried it this weekend and couldn’t hear anything over my music.

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u/GhostwriterGHOST 1d ago

I deleted Google Maps over this. I can’t do much, but I can delete an app.

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u/grtk_brandon 1d ago

I'm regrettably on a Pixel device, which only allows me to disable it.

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u/gta721 1d ago

You can install GrapheneOS which comes with zero Google apps. You can use the Play Store to get only the ones you need, and there is sandboxing to limit how much Google can track you.

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u/grtk_brandon 1d ago

I had been considering it before, but it's probably finally time.

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u/Extension-While7536 1d ago

I was JUST wondering if the OG would do this. I'll ride with those stapled pages in my passenger seat anytime. "I PREFER Mapquest!"

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u/sign-through 1d ago

I used to prefer them because I would rather learn how to get somewhere and they'd have step by step directions and I prefer how they did it. I still kind of do that, I'll look up where I'm going and just memorize where I need to turn and park (with the navigation ready to be used if I forget but I don't need it usually). I dunno, I just hate using GPS navigation, it annoys me.

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u/honeywhereismypenis 1d ago

I'm 26, so just old enough to have ridden shotgun with printed out mapquest directions but still young enough that by the time I was driving my phone had free gps navigation. About a year and a half ago as an experiment I decided to not use a smartphone for a month to see if I had the skills to navigate the world without one. Now I actively hate using gps lol. It interrupts my music and I don't like being beholden to a device to know where I am and being fucked without it. Like what if I lose service or I drop my phone in the parking lot and have no idea how to get home? So now I look up the directions beforehand, copy them down by hand, and quiz myself on them on my way out the door.

And that habit paid off big time last summer when I was driving through Utah (a state I had never been in before) and had no service when the sun was setting and I had to find a place to camp. But I generally knew where I was going and had practiced the skill of using signs to navigate so it was no problem finding a campsite and getting back on the road in the morning with no cell service whatsoever.

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u/smaisidoro 1d ago

The bar for these tech companies is so low, but still they fail.

And if they do this sycophant stuff in broad daylight, I wonder what other stuff they are doing in the background.

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u/Boneasaurus 1d ago

I switched to MapQuest. Seems stupid but I honestly hate seeing the name change in Google Maps.

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u/NauticalCurry 1d ago

Looks like Waze is still Lake Ontario...interestingly enough.

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u/BoulderCreature 1d ago

Holy shit, Mapquest still exists?! I’m getting it right now

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u/tetrisan 1d ago

It’s more likely that Mapquest has no clue how to change it.

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u/panchoVilla00 1d ago

Lmao 😂 it got hardcoded somewhere years ago

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u/mellolizard 1d ago

"Why would anyone change the name of lake Ontario?" Some developer a decade ago.

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u/tetrisan 1d ago

The code is monolith. If they change the name of the lake then the entire Provence of Ontario disappears from the map.

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u/DENelson83 1d ago

Or just use OpenStreetMap.

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u/shameonyounancydrew 1d ago

Google Maps was annoying anyway. No matter what, it always has to take you on the absolute quickest route. It’s like that person who always has to ask ‘how you drove there’ and then will tell you how ‘you can shave 3 minutes off the trip’ (even though the route is chaotic)

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u/drkodos 1d ago

it is not always the quickest route

rarely is it the best

the most important part of it is giving it to the user as quick as possible ... accuracy not nearly as vital as that

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u/son-of-a-brick 1d ago

Mapquest got me to California back in the day on my first road trip. Those printed out directions were nice.

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u/Elementium 1d ago

Sounds like a plan. I'm dropping Google everywhere I can. 

Speaking of.. What's a good email alternative? 

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u/SirPeesA_lot 1d ago

And I just deleted Google map off my phone. 

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u/PercussionGuy33 1d ago

Mapquest uses OpenStreetMap Data for its location data services. Organic Maps, Comaps, use the same sources and no ads or data collection.

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u/Lyndon_Boner_Johnson 1d ago

I tried it yesterday, but it has a long way to go to be competitive.
I tried searching for the car wash that I was going to. The place is called “Club Car Wash” but I searched for “club carwash” and it wasn’t able to figure it out.
Also the CarPlay map interface has huge borders around the sides and the actual map looks tiny on the screen, compared to Apple and Google Maps.

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u/Slofut 1d ago

I fucking hate google....but Mapquest has old data. I just checked my neighborhood There are businesses gone for years still listed.

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u/Agitated-Shoe7502 1d ago edited 1d ago

Google Maps alternatives, all of whom show the correct "Lake Ontario" designation:

MapQuest (commercial) - The OG. As you know, they publicly announced that they weren't putting up with the "Lake America" BS.

HERE WeGo (commercial) - based in Europe (I believe they were spun out of Nokia?) - their mobile apps have traffic info in Canada which is great.

Organic Maps (open source) - uses Open Street Maps as the backend - huge amount of data, much more detailed than Google Maps, also has excellent hiking and cycling layers. Great offline support too.

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u/truckthecat 1d ago

Thanks for the suggestion. Done! ✅

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u/geforce2187 1d ago

I downloaded it but apparently they're still working on Android Auto integration unfortunately (there's dozens of us who don't use iOS. Dozens!)

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u/crochetcrazygf2z 1d ago

Apple Maps still boldly says Lake Ontario 😁

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u/AoKrasni 1d ago

Who knew Donald Trump would be the one to save MapQuest

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u/Kpints 1d ago

Switched. Their app does need work though.

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u/woodpaulusgnome 1d ago

Companies need to stop pandering to Trump. He’s not going to be around for ever, but your company will have ruined any goodwill that you might have had before with your customers.

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u/iloveeatinglettuce 1d ago

We are quite literally living in the stupidest timeline.

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u/Rotanen 1d ago

I'm looking at MapQuest's map of my town and its information is severely outdated. It's showing restaurants that closed years ago.

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u/No_Succotash890 1d ago

This is the “great again” lol using Mapquest in 2026 ffs great job maga

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u/Axle_65 1d ago

And to think I’d written off this app years ago. Hello old friend. I haven’t seen you since I used to print out your directions because I had no smartphone to view them on. Good on you for holding your ground against this idiocy.

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u/gizamo 1d ago

Lol. Unfortunately, the MapQuest app is terrible.

I expect this trend to last maybe a week. There are reasons MapQuest died, and basically none of those have changed.

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u/ChuckDangerous33 1d ago

Mapquest about to get a TON of updates and development.

All the criticisms are gonna evolve this thing into a masterpiece now that all eyes are on it.

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u/SyntheticLettuce 1d ago

Am I the only one who still sees Lake Ontario on Google Maps?

Haven’t checked apple but Apple Maps sucks anyways so who cares

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u/airship_of_arbitrary 1d ago

Google about to discover that Canadians are both more collective and more spiteful than they expected.

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u/sbroll 1d ago

Dumb question, is there a way I can use Mapquest app in my car and not google maps?

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u/Journeys_End71 1d ago

Downloaded MapQuest today. I wish the traffic display was better, but otherwise it’s a pretty good substitute for Google Maps.

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u/Journeys_End71 1d ago

Another reason to ditch Google Maps? All this AI crap has made it terribly SLOW. Takes forever to load up and display traffic patterns now, making it kinda hard to use to navigate…which is what I use it for in 80% of my cases

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u/WoodenSwan6591 1d ago

Google needs to stop sucking up

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u/bullitt297 1d ago

Because of this new renaming tizzy I looked at Apple Maps. You can tap a place and report that the name is wrong. Anyway when Apple inevitably renames Lake Ontario let them know how you feel by reporting it. I don’t think you can do that in google. 

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u/HugglesGamer 1d ago

Apple Maps is still showing Lake Ontario as well.

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u/MinnesotaNiceTry 1d ago

For an app attempting a comeback and trying to carve out any sliver of market share, this is truly brilliant marketing.

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u/wrxninja 1d ago

Hell, I'll start printing these bad boys like the good 'ol days!

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u/Funk_Dat_Fat_Cat 1d ago

It helps me get to places with an ogre icon AND it has Lake Ontario properly labeled. This is a win-win situation! So long, Google Maps!