It is John Ternus’ first day on the job as CEO of Apple. According to Bloomberg, his intended yearly salary in that role is $58 million. And on this historic day in Apple history, what is the first notable, public-facing change under the new CEO’s leadership? That would be that the company has caved, like Google before it, and rechristened Lake Ontario “Lake America” in its Maps application.
Let that fact be forever etched in stone, sort of the way the signature of Ternus’ predecessor, Tim Cook, is forever etched in glass on the chintzy desk decoration the company gifted to President Donald Trump last year.
Around August 25, a round of trade talks between the U.S. and Canada melted down. Afterward, an August 27 executive order from Trump called on the Board on Geographic Names to renamed the lake, which isn’t even named after the Canadian province of Ontario.
You probably don’t need to hear this from me, but no one—not other countries, and not even states within the U.S.—is required to honor this obvious tantrum from the President. Per Reuters, Apple confirmed the change on Tuesday, which is in keeping with what’s in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. U.S. users will see “Lake America,” but Canadian users will see “Lake Ontario.” Users in other countries will apparently see both. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that a majority of Americans oppose the change.
Reuters writes with great delicacy that this shows “how U.S. tech companies are being pulled into geopolitical disputes as the Trump administration pressures them to comply with executive orders that allies and international bodies have rejected.”
Trump himself has written about related issues, but puts them in somewhat starker terms. He claims that Tim Cook called him during his first term, seeking help with some problem only Trump could ostensibly fix. “I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass,’” he wrote on Truth Social.
Last year, in keeping with another of Trump’s whims, Apple renamed the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America.”
There does not appear to be any reason for Apple to make these changes apart from them being the President’s preferences. Regardless of what’s in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System, MapQuest is holding firm and not changing the name of Lake Ontario.
We’re not changing it. pic.twitter.com/NdeE9v2BNO
— MapQuest (@MapQuest) August 27, 2026
Gizmodo reached out to Apple for an explanation as to why Apple made this choice. We did not immediately hear back.
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