There was a time I can remember when the common term for mapping a route on the computer was to “MapQuest it.”

I’m talking about the mid 1990’s until a few years after Google Maps came out in 2005. At some point after Google Maps had been around the ‘switch’ happened, and everyone started to gradually migrate over from MapQuest. Google Maps started out as the Student, and had become the Master.

Now, here we are in September of 2012 and Apple has ditched Google Maps for it’s own solution. The problem is, for some people in some parts of the world, this “solution” isn’t a solution at all.

In response to the backlash to the new Maps application in iOS, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, has issued an apology and has recommended we look to some third-party applications for help as they fix their maps. One of the services Cook recommends? MapQuest (via The Loop).

I find that so surreal.

Is that the Backstreet Boys I hear on the radio?