BARD Mobile

Earlier, I guess around before the update, I could go into my wishlist and view the next book in the series. No, I don’t know where the next book is, even with the “more info, “button. I will have to go online now, to find out where the next book in “the wheel of time, “is located after. “the dragon reborn. “ this is not very good, but the bard app is still working for me. if you would like to know my router, advisors name, it is Megan McCormick. She is in the Jefferson City Missouri branch of wool from the library.

Keep in mind, a signature from a doctor or healthcare professional is required before you get approval from the NLS. Here in my state the whole process only took about one week. When initially installing the BARD app it would be beneficial to have someone fully cited by your side to help you sign in. Having said that, the app and service exceeded all expectations! I know some users have experienced issues, but that wasn't my experience. Maybe it was a software bug that has since been resolved? nevertheless, as a voiceover user I found the app and controls very easy to navigate. The layout is very straight forward and intuitive. Searching, adding books to your wishlist, downloading, and deleting are simple to perform. This goes for using the audio player as well. In voiceover mode, one flick of the finger gives you all kinds of secondary options like more titles by that particular author or subject. I was very impressed with the amount of titles in the library, with new ones being added regularly. They may not have brand new releases, but they are as recent as six months to a year. I did a comparison to Apple books and found that BARD had about 2/3 of the titles of the former, at least the ones I was looking for. Lastly, the narrators are all top-notch with great voices and diction.

I love the app, but an equalizer feature would be nice, as well as a pitch shifter to raise or lower the pitch as well as more speed options. what does tone mean when listening to a book? is it possible to update the app to be compatible with iOS 17? this app is so fun and neat and amazing and awesome and cool and super and phenomenal. please don’t ever get rid of the book Breakthrough by Joyce Smith because it is an inspiring and true story. thank you so much for finally adding this book because I’ve been waiting to download it for a long time. it would be even more cool if you could set the speed to 0%. Please don’t ever get rid of this app because I love it so much and it’s so nice and handy and convenient. Thanks. I love how the books are read by actual humans who are expressive instead of text-to-speech. Now I can’t even adjust the tone of the book I am listening to like I used to be able to do. thanks so much for updating the app so that I can adjust the tone of the books again like I used to. Please keep the updates coming if possible. is it possible to update the app to be compatible with iOS 17.4.1? There’s nothing wrong with the app, but I was just wondering.

I've been a listener of NLS books since way back when, and by that I mean I used to wait around for my box of cassette tapes to come in the mail so I could load my next books into a massive machine with a bunch of weird slider controls and switches. Now I can just download books into the app, and I must say I'm a huge fan. The audiobook library is truly massive, and the app is usually pretty reliable. The only thing holding me back from a 4 or 5 star review? Well, as a user of a lot of apple products, I often play my Bard books on my Homepod speaker through Airplay, and this is a very frustrating experience because the Bard app has yet to be updated to use the Airplay 2 standard. Without being too technicle, this means that using Airplay is a very sluggish and glitchy experience. I was hoping the recent update to the app would finally fix this, but unfortunately it did not. Bottom line, I love the massive library, and the app works well enough, but it doesn't work well with my set-up which is frustrating.

Hi, this is Jeanne. I’m trying to figure out why I’m having a hard time. Logging onto bard with my iPhone 14 Pro. I’ve never had this problem before. It’s telling me to sign up like I’m a new user. I am not a new user! Has anybody else had this problem? Please let me know why I can’t sign on to the bard app with my cell phone. That’s why I gave this a little reading. Because it’s not working correctly! Jeanne PS, I have tried both emails. And they both turned red! I’ve tried my iCloud one, and my Gmail one. I think I switched back to the Gmail. And it’s not working at all. Not even my password. So again this is the reason why I gave this a little reading. Until this is fixed, I’m not changing the rating at all! I wonder why this works on my victor reader streams? But not on my iPhone. Please help. Sorry for the long response.

Since updating my iPhone 12 Pro Max's operating system to IOS 17.0.3 earlier this month, when I press any button in the app, I get a message stating that the login credentials cannot be decrypted. At one point it told me that there was no connection to the network. so while I can log into the BARD website, see my wishlist, previous downloads, and search the book collection, I can't do any of that in the app. It also doesn't allow me to download books because the same message always appears. I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the application, I have changed my password, I have restarted my iPhone, I have called Apple technical support, I have emailed nls, I have sent registry diagnostics, I have received recommendations. nothing works. I suspect the app needs updating to be fully compatible with IOS 17.0.3.

The most recent update of the Bard application is driving me crazy! The Siri commands responses are not consistent and in many cases, I need to go back to the screen on my iPhone in order to resolve command issues. The users manual has not been updated and I cannot find information that might be helpful in addressing the problems I have found. the shock bone induction headset I use response, inconsistently and many times. I cannot pause the book. I am reading when I want to respond to a person’s question. It is nice to be able to move between tone and speed on the app screen again. I know it has been a long time since the prior update, but I am hoping for a quick fix to the problems I am having.

Long time user of the mobile app. Within the last week, I have not been able to log into my account. I tried to change my password using the link sent to my email. I got the same prompt telling me my account has been deactivated and to contact my local library. after contacting my local talking book library, they informed me that I was still a current member and that there was an issue with the app. there is no resolution that has been given to me or even a notice that there was an issue to begin with. very frustrating.

This app is literally my lifeline, and I don’t know what I would do without it. But, since this new update. My books haven’t been wanting to play. And sometimes when they do you want to play, it sounds like it’s all static he. I’m usually just able to press the sleep timer, to where I want it to go and it will work. But that doesn’t work anymore and I have to keep pressing play and pause for several minutes until it starts playing again.

I love this app. Don’t get me wrong. However, there is a book that came out yesterday. “The Sun And The Stars.” by Rick Riordan. Why is it not there? You probably have tons of Percy Jackson fans that have been waiting for this book for a long time. It is a disgrace and it isn’t fair because everyone else can access it right away on Kindle or some other reading book app. Why are we not able to access this book? you need to add this book please.

I absolutely love this app! It's very simple to use and works well with voiceover. I highly recommend it to anyone who qualifies for this app because it so amazing. I know a lot of people may have had issues, but I have not. One of the things that I love is that you do not have to have internet to download books, which means you can download them straight to your phone, which makes things so much easier. So, thank you NLS for the development of this goeat app!

I love this app and have used it for years, but the latest update was a huge step backward because it no longer allows access to the BARD web site within the app. I now have to go online to search for books by subject and some other category. Besides that, the app has truly been amazing and I have never had issues with it.

There is nothing to dislike about this app. It is an audio book reader for blind and visually impaired people and requires an account with the National Library for the Blind. The controls are large and very simple. The book search system is not my favorite and could be improved, but at its heart this is a READER app. My search functions stopped working recently, but it turns out I just had to update the app.

Have used this app a lot in the past & loved it❗️. I am believing wind and really appreciate the work that is put in to this amp! It is a lifesaver for me, and has been so easy to use! Please keep up the good work for all of us left to read I can’t see the physical page! it’s nice because if we don’t like it, we can just cancel that particular book and go onto the next one!

OK, so mom my name is Amelia I am half blind. I love this. Because I can read the books like normal people however, I wish there were actual text so I can read along with the book like I said I’m half blind, not whole so I can still see some words, so would you write me back please? This is a really good app. Thank you for form making this for me.😎😎😎 you’re really good at making app

I love this app. I don’t even listen to TV anymore. I think the only problem is in the past couple of months, there’s hardly been any magazines or books put on the app. There’s also no way to filter out any books that have found language in them. Also series of books, in order, you have to figure out which one goes first, that takes a very long time especially if there’s 19 books in the theory. I wish you could fix that part.

No matter how many times I have downloaded fresh version and on a platform that includes the most current version of iOS on hardware manufactured in the last 5 years, I never get beyond a constant request to reset password. The web site looks like something designee by a grade schooler using a ‘how to design and build a web site’ for ‘dummies’ published in 1998. A call in for support was answered by someone who clearly themself seemed digitally less literate. Come on, folks ..and please spare the ‘budget’ as the cause - the library could be drawing upon students in our public colleges to get this together.

This 2.0 update is not the best work I have experience with this app. nevertheless, I gave the app 4 STARZ because it does the job of putting audiobooks at my fingertips. I would give 5 stars if the app will allow access to the website again. This is a huge, huge miss!

I have used BARD Mobile since it was first released. The latest update, 2.0, is a giant step backward. The app is much harder to use. You can no longer access the website from the app. The font and spacing allows less info about the books, you can’t read the entire squib. The sleep function is messed up and I cannot start the playback without fooling with the sleep button. It appears like someone did this update that doesn’t use the app. I hope you put it back like it was

This app is terrific, a new feature should definitely be implemented when it comes to deleting previously downloaded material

Since the new 2.0 update I’m having a lot of trouble downloading my books. I’m currently attempting to download a book and after two days it still hasn’t downloaded on my IPhone. I like the portanity of being able to download a book onto my phone and then being able to take it with me on my walks or long car rides. At this time it’s hit or miss on downloading . I don’t know what they did to this program but I sure wish they would fix it because I really miss my reading time.

Bard mobile was at one time a great app for visually handicapped people. Now after the last few updates, nothing works with voice over on apple. Some things are impossible to click on, while other things have moved entirely. I’m no longer able to navigate and use this app on my own and now have to rely and depend on a seeing person to do it for me. At this point I might as well use any app since it no longer makes any difference for me.

Completely broken. Can’t get passed login screen. Pop up keeps saying that there’s an issue with token verification. I have done all the appropriate troubleshooting steps, but the problem persists. Support (LoC) keeps blaming the problem on me, but it is just a badly programmed application. I am a software engineer myself, trying to get this to work for my nearly blind aunt. This is unacceptable. Try programming in error codes to assist with troubleshooting, and make sure those supporting the blind with this app know what they are doing.

I have been happily using BARD since 2012 with no complaints. For several days now, there is no way to access the Bard website from The Get Books tab on the app. The link has disappeared. So I downloaded the app onto another device- with the same issue. If you can’t access the website to download books, then this app is useless. Extremely upsetting. Why has the access to the BARD website been removed from the app?

navigating by swipe to the Play/Stop button ok but a moment after tapping Play the voice over focus jumps to the first button top-left on screen. normally focus remained on the Play/Stop button. user in this case relies on swipe navigation so the new ios breaks usability.

I don’t understand why this app does not have a volume control. On a flight, you cannot hear voice using ear buds. At home I have to carry my device with me, which is inconvenient, or play it through my TV. Why isn’t there a way to turn the volume louder? Otherwise I love it.

The button to change from speed adjustment to tone adjustment is not working.

Installed the app this afternoon and have had minimal success with downloading selected items. I have four books on my bookshelf but have only been able to successfully download one of them - after have a dozen or so attempts. I’ve tried the other three items dozens of times, to no avail. Having the same issue with magazines.

I used to be able to download books from this app without having any problems. Today I tried to download one of the books on my Wish List, and the app kept closing on its own. I even tried turning VoiceOver off but to no avail. Oh, well. It was g`reat while it lasted.

The bard web does'nt appear in get books

Every time I open the app or move between app screens it requests my password and then says it failed. After canceling a few times I can listen to my books and I've logged into the website checking my password just to make sure it's not the issue.

I am constantly having problems with this app. I am told I have been suspended for too many login attempts, but I am not logging in, merely listening to books. I could not recommend this app if it were the last book listening app on the planet. Highly dissatisfied!

There is not an option to browse by genre or category which makes it challenging for my clients to find new books.

Not very happy with this latest update. Can no longer do a book search by whether it is fiction, nonfiction, horror, sci-fi, etc…

I wish I could use a USB flash drive on the BARD Mobile app. That would make the situation of low storage a lot easier to handle.

This app is the best app for us reading books on here it is awesome

I do love this app but, it loved me out last week.

I can’t use the app now. I am stuck on the password login page can’t get passed it can’t log in. Been like this since the update. Please fix it!

I love the fact I can download MLS materials (books and magazines in my case) to my phone. However, certain features don't work with iOS 8 and voiceover. Specifically, if one chooses the option to browse the bard website, it is impossible to do a keyword search because the edit box doesn't work even after one double taps on the keyword search edit box. Furthermore, I couldn't do a search for a book by title since the combo box to select a title wouldn't come up even after I double tapped on the picker. Please fix these iOS 8/voiceover glitches number one. In addition, please add the ability to type in the name of and author and the title of a book when searching for a book number two.

I spend many hours every week in this app. On each screen: Good placement of controls for both swiping and touch. I've used BARD Mobile with VoiceOver for 10 years. I start books in other readers, but I spend so much time in BARD that I tend to use the other reader apps primarily to pinpoint particular phrases in text and add notes. I hardly ever use braille in BARD, partly because I use other apps for braille, but I just now discovered that my search format defaults to select audio, even though Show me Both audio and braille is selected in settings. I'll make more of an effort to search for all formats. I so very much appreciate BARD's stability; a new design is the last thing we want. I appreciate that updates generally seem either necessary or helpful. I miss the old search interface, so sometimes I go to the website and add titles to my wish list. The Recents list is very well done. I would love to have other lists that I could name/personalize (such as wind down, late night, and bookmarked (listing books I've bookmarked)). I'm getting used to using app shortcuts on the home screen, so maybe various lists (such as recents and customized) could be set as BARD shortcuts. Occasionally, there's a BARD system message, especially Re: occasional brief outages. I've always felt that these messages were very respectful and necessary. 2 confusing things: The message always repeats itself, so I have to hit ok twice, but I've never cared enough to mention it until now. Also, I'd like an easy way to find and reread the alert. The few times I've needed customer service, they were very responsive and on point. Thank you, BARD, for being such a wonderful part of my life!

I enjoy listening to books through this app, but there are a few problems to fix that prevent it from being more effective and enjoyable. First, after the sleep timer runs out, you have to close the app $ open it again to play a book. Second, when looking at a book, not all of the description is visible. All that can be read by voiceover, but it should all be visible. I do wish the series and book number, or not at the end of the description. Also, if you click on the three dollar menu and go to series, the series is an order alphabetically instead of by the book order of the series. Third, I don’t appreciate that where are you are in search or wishlist disappears when you either switch to a different tab, app, or get a phone call. This makes it difficult to continue your search or where you were. I would also like it if the book being played, would continue after a notification, phone calls, or timer/alarm went off. A couple suggestions: Exact wording checkbox When it comes to doing a search, it would be nice if there’s a checkbox for doing exact word search. When I am looking for the title of a book, and I know the exact wording, it’s difficult to find if there are many other titles with the same words. I’ve also struggled to find an author, because either the last name or first name were in so many other authors names. there are also times when the author filter for search includes names and titles. Player color change It would be nice if the background color of the player could be changed, if you apply dark mode. This would mean it won’t be as bright when looking at it in the dark. If you choose the black and yellow theme, having it where the white buttons turn into yellow would also be nice.

App should have volume control within app so you don’t have to turn up all your phone to be listening to a book; speed and tone should have more options, and options should be programmable for fast forward /rewind as well as sleep timer. One large change that really ought to occur, if Library of Congress actually cares about representing books well and as intended by author, Best recordings of books should be located and used! I’ve listen to several series and in some, the reader pronounces the same word, spelled the same in text, in a different way… Some series, different readers are reading books throughout the series, which is at best annoying. I have listened to some of these series on CD, and my experience was far better because the reader did an all-around better job; this directs back to my saying the best recording of a thing should be found and used. The search function on the website seems very limited, or perhaps it is only that it is a quite limited selection available… Which is also a huge disappointment. Oh, and one more point: getting a book download it to listen within the bard app is not as easy or simple as it should be; you must add a book to your wish list, open your wishlist, and choose to download the book.

Gortheer: "Relatively well "? LOL. ou812app: I wasn't having the same problem you are until today, it was going a little bit slow, and wasn't loading, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it, and now I can't log in. Same as you. However, before this, I could log in perfectly fine, and everything else worked perfectly fine too. Which is why I am still giving this app five stars. I really, really like this app, and I have been waiting so long for it! It works very well, and I like the portability of not having to bring either a big bulky player, or some other type of player that was more expensive, with me somewhere so that I can read books. I am hoping that there will be an update out that will fix this issue, plus add the sleep timer. I would like that very useful feature as well. The only other thing I have been noticing with me, and it may just be my Internet connection, is that when I download books, they are downloading extremely slow now. Other than that, I have had no other problems. Thank you so much NLS, and the good Lord above, for making this happen!!! 😄

Tried to use this app today for the first time in quite a while. Was attempting to do a search for a book title, however when I pressed the search button the only thing that came up was something that said empty list, the title of the book I was looking for did not appear. Nor did this work when I tried the other two options select author and select latest. I was unable to do a search under the main search field either, where it says title and author search. Something has happened to this app. Not sure what. The only way to find a book you want us to go into the recently added section of the app and scroll through everything that is there. This text way too much time. Checked with the library to make sure that the title and author of the book I was searching for was in their inventory and they confirmed that it was. So, apparently, someone has broken this part of the app that allows you to search. I hope in the next version this problem gets repaired. This was a very good app and very convenient for searching quickly through library of written material.

I’ve been blind for about six years now I can honestly say BARD has changed my life! I listen to about 2-3 audiobooks a week, I don’t know what I would do without this great free service! I really appreciate what this company does for the blind and visually impaired. When I first went blind it was a learning curve for me with this app, but once I got comfortable using it it really is very simple to use and very accessible for the blind and visually impaired. I haven’t really experienced any of the issues that other reviewer‘s have mentioned. The only suggestion I would like to add is maybe list a table of contents in the annotation of short story collections audiobooks. That way we could simply read the audiobook description listing all the short stories contained in the audiobook without having to actually download the book. Without this we don’t have a clue which short stories are contained in the audiobook collections therefore we have to download the audiobook so we can listen to the table of contents.

Having this app available is fantastic! Having such convenient access to books has literally changed the life of this blind user. The only things that I have found that could be improved are the ability to download books in the background without the need for the BARD app being on top and active, and sync of the downloaded library across devices. Those things are minor though, and I assume the development team is working on them for a future release. Overall, this is a very well executed and wonderfully functional initial release. One minor bug that I have encountered is that the speed of the voice that announces player functions is greatly reduced (maybe as slow as one tenth the rate it should be) when playing the audio out through AirPlay. AirPlay still works fine for the actual book content, though. This app has changed the world for the blind. Absolutely fantastic. Thank you!

After a couple days of attempting to log in with time out failures I nearly gave up when I finally was able to log in with my BARD account info. I found I could browse the BARD catalog, view the new releases, and even add books to my wish list but download kept giving me time out errors so I'm sure this is related to the initial log in time out issues. My current work around has been to download the books I want on my computer, then import them into the BARDmobile app using itunes. Not sure if this method of adding books to the app is outlined in the help files, but it works great and the zip files from BARD extract right into the audio book shelf very quickly. Books play great, controls work great, and the book mark feature is awesome. The only feature I really miss from the stand alone player is the sleep timer which I used to use all the time. I would give this app 4 of 5 if the download and long in time outs were fixed and a 5 ouut of 5 stars if the sleep timer was added .

It is possible to use this app with voiceover. However, I frequently find that if I leave the app open for a while that when I come back to the app after doing something else I get the message that it failed to decode. I must then close the app and reopen it. If I have not set a bookmark, I get moved around somewhere in the book. I am also found a book that at a certain position, will crash the app and requires me to re-open it. Though less important, the search process is clunkier than necessary. It would be nice if the search edit field was close to the beginning of the get books tab. Finally, it would be nice if the wish list was optional, and you could download a book right away directly. I try to give an app developer feedback before writing a bad review. However, there is no feedback option in the app, and the Feedback option in the app support page how to captcha that I could not solve even after multiple tries.

To most of the complaints mentioned here, I suggest reading the help file that comes with the Bard Mobile app. It is true the web site goes down for hours or sometimes days and then comes back up again. I had all but stopped using the NLS system until Bard Mobile came along. It is truly mobile. I can get books anytime, anywhere. I can read the same book as long as I wish. The books are high quality and free. A glitch with Iphone 6 IOS 8 Stop playing built in clock timer function, it doesn't work with Bard Mobile when voice over is turned on. The "stop playing function works fine on the iphone 4 IOS 6 with voice over turned on. This glitch seems to only happen with bardmobile , but then I don't use "stop playing" with any other apps on a regular basis.

The app is very accessible and works nicely overall. However, I have noticed a large increase of bugs that either don’t get resulved at all, or that takes forever to be fixed. I think there’s too much time between updates. Also, the website feature on the app hardly works anymore. I think the overall equipment can’t keep up with the processing requirements that their newer ICloud requires to function. As the result, I think the website isn’t fully compadible with the app anymore. Also, just about every time I go to download or get on to the website, I see all of the bugs, just about every single time these days. This is why I gave the 3 of 5 star rating. Kill all of the bugs, I’ll be more than happy to give it a higher rating.