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by nticompass 493 days ago
Since myself and everyone I know refuses to acknowledge this "name change"... what map apps do you guys recommend?
5 comments

Per the link, they're just following the US Geographic Names Information System updates. What _should_ be the standard here, if not to follow the official naming policies?
How about a non-US standard?
OpenStreetMaps has excellent maps, and there are many apps that use it. Unfortunately their search is usually not that good.

I use Organic Maps, and also have OsmAnd. Great maps, poor search. I'd love to know if there's an app with better search.

Well, at the moment OSM has the tag

"official_name:en-US"="Gulf of America"

but it changes regularly (see https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/305639190). How the map providers deal with this tag is up to them. There's actually a huge discussion how to deal with this. It's... complicated:

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-o...

That sounds reasonable. name:en is still "Gulf of Mexico". That way I suppose the app can choose whether to use the general English or US-specific name.
VPN to Mexico, or just set your device location outside of the U.S.
In the Czech Republic at least, Google Maps now shows "Mexický záliv (Americký záliv)". I'm not sure which countries still see the original name other than Mexico.
Apple Maps still refers to it as Gulf of Mexico.
If Apple decided to call it the Gulf of Steve, they might just be big enough to get it to stick.
Sticking it to Trump by switching to a bad maps app.
I think that people are uncomfortable with the idea that Google Maps is centralized and can unilaterally change what you see. Having an offline version of a map helps protect against sudden change (go forward or retroactive).

As an aside, I do really like organic maps. I keep it installed with downloaded maps for when I travel to places with poor signal, including hiking trails.

Oh, so you just blindly agree with whatever he says and just blindly use Google services whilst ignoring the reasons people might have issues with them?
If I had to stop using services or buying products every time they advocate for something or do some change I disagree with I would have to live in a cabin in the woods.
"The extreme version of this position is unreasonable, therefore the moderate version of this position is also unreasonable"

Is there a name for this fallacy?

If everything must be political, would you mind explaining your support for venture capitalism that comes implicit in the act of commenting on Hacker News?