American Flag keyboard icon removed.

French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Russian, Romanian, Maori, Swedish, Strangely, my Yiddish has the symbol for it still showing. I guess because it was an outside keyboard, and not part of the Apple selection. So I guess I need 9 flags in addition to the US one, back.

stan_fisher wrote:

Same trouble. I switch between languages very often and it's too hard to figure out which language is on. It makes me look up every time

There are some apps to fix this for you if you want.

New Icons for Input Sources/Keyboard Layo… - Apple Community

Tatami53 wrote:

Keyboard Switcheroo doesn't seem to have Japanese. .

I don't think Apple has ever used a Japanese flag, if that is what you are after. Japanese input is the past already used black/white icons with Japanese characters in them.

I just updated OS in about half a year and this was the FIRST THING I noticed. I was so used to the American flag as my default for telling me what language Im on. I also type in other language and the other language showed up as black/white, because of this, now the new icon makes me think Im not on the US language. I would also like a change back, knowing Apple this is a permanent change with a weaker replacement.

Quite disappointing as they just keep taking out functions that I really enjoy and is part of my work flow.

I don't quite like the current way, it's very unergonomic. "US + US" means (or at least supposed to mean) "US English", but looking at the "US" icon alone and the icon + title combo (which is "US + US") doesn't make this clear. Perhaps there needs to be some indication that it is "US and English" in both icon and title. Ditto for "GB + British". I'd say language indication should be "the main part" of the icon and the country flag the secondary to differentiate between, say, US English and UK English.

Attaching a mockup image how this can be improved. In essence that would be a mixture of old and new ways. The icon can be bigger if needed (e.g. same height, twice as wide).

Color is very important aspect here, e.g. when switching keyboards quickly you can look at the text you are entering and just notice a color change by your side vision to know you are using correct keyboard without actually looking in there (*). Without color this is impossible, you really have to move your focus of attention away from text, onto the menubar, in there you have to figure out where exactly is the keyboard icon (because there are quite a few icons and they are all similar) carefully change between some cryptic "XY" and "YZ" and after that return back to text. Repeat again next time you need to switch the keyboard. Quite a torture and a distraction.

(*) By this logic black background is perhaps a bad idea either, each language should have a color (even if randomly selected) to easily (i.e. by the side vision only) differentiate between, say, "CA. French" and "CA. English" keyboards.

Even when I do look at the keyboard icon when switching keyboard with keyboard shortcut I can literally fill that a different part of brain is involved in recognition and it takes much more brain power cycles than before when recognition was based on color.

BTW, If you didn't use several keyboards before you probably won't notice anything wrong. Perhaps that's what happened in this case in the chain of command in Apple when approving this change. Apple would benefit from doing more "hallway" testing early in the design process, so things like upside down logo on Powerbooks G3, or the charging adaptor on magic mouse, or indeed this new keyboard icon on Monterey won't happen.

Apple does not post here but I have been told they have people looking for problems in the forums.

I wholeheartedly want to join you in this request!

Besides, it is simply unpatriotic to remove the flag option from the doc!

Alex

Thank you! I might attempt it, but I still think that Apple should give us a choice of icons here.

The campaign is growing! Maybe Apple will listen!

This change was clearly made in a hurry because, why would you want to have the icon AND the input source name, which is basically the same thing now?

artalwil wrote:

Besides, it is simply unpatriotic to remove the flag option from the doc!

I believe you're confusing patriotism with nationalism.

I also miss my brazilian flag icon. ...hey, Apple! Listen to your users, please!

ViniciusANS wrote:

I also miss my brazilian flag icon.

Use a flag as your desktop background. Hang one up over your desk. Get one tattooed on your hand.