BARD Mobile Reviews

by Vlad Dr

In V1.2, app is freezing whenever one tries to access any bookshelf. The solution of going to the settings app and selecting ‘Setting Initialisation’ (suggested by a developer in response to someone else’s review) did nothing for the problem, for me. In having to re-log-in, I lost access to the book I was reading. I went from being stuck reading one book over and over again to having no book(s) to read. Not a solution, very disappointed face.

Played around, and found I can access downloaded books by going to ‘Get Books’->’Previous Downloads’. Hope that helps others, and BARD gets fixed soon!

by Stokersue

Don’t like that I must log in every time I need to use the search feature. Neither BARD for the ipad or phone will now save my log in information. It’s a real hassle to track down this info every time and try and plug it into little boxes when I’m visually impaired.

Also I have not been able to use my iPad to search for a book and place it on my wish list. BARD requires me to download it. I like to use the larger screen of the iPad to search for books, save them to my wishlist and later load them to my smaller phone for listening. I don’t want to carry my large iPad around while listening to a book. Before the changes, I could do this.

by Homie G!

I’ve been using BARD since 2017 and haven’t run into any major issues. But recently after updating BARD , it gives me this annoying alert every time I open BARD . Telling me that either the login ID or password are incorrect. I click OK and I re-enter my information. I haven’t updated it since last year on all my devices so there’s no issues there. I know I’m using my current password. After I click OK, it gives me the same alert again. I can click cancel if I want, but the moment I try to either download or download a new book, it gives me that similar again. But it works just fine on my iPad which I don’t understand. The iPhone version must be broken. I’d like to be able to listen to books on all my devices.

by Sneebyjane

When using dictate function it almost never spells words correctly. Ex: for Michael it substituted “Michale” And for Tower it substituted “Tower’”.
The pages on the this app website is way too cluttered for a blind person and VoiceOver to read through... it lists too many details and if what you want is at the bottom of the page Voice Over has to read everything above before you get there.
If you do a general search it lists all the results with titles then authors then etc.... so it takes forever to find what you want.
Then if you search by author you can only search by first letter of last name and not by name. Again, too much info to sift through.
Suggestions::
There should be options to do refined searches such as being able to search by full author’s name.
The Bookshare app is very compatible with VoiceOver and is easy to find out if they have a book you need /want. Would be great if this app was set up like Bookshare as far as searching for books.

The website seems like a sighted person put it together. If that is true please have a blind person who is familiar with technology to help redesign it. Fir a sighted person it wouldn’t be so hard to sort through.

by Denisovich87

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 this app 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.

by Club Bullet

Tried to use BARD 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 BARD. Not sure what. The only way to find a book you want us to go into the recently added section of BARD 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 BARD 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.

by Vtsaran

For some reason, BARD has a long-standing issue of interrupting audio as soon as the screen is locked. Very counter-productive!
From the wishlist: I so much hope BARD would display the time left in the current chapter, not just the whole book.
Otherwise, BARD has a lot of useful features such as jumping by chapters, sound cues for various events, etc.
The inability to play books while the screen is locked, is a huge showstopper though!

by Lisa Cushman

It is possible to use BARD with voiceover. However, I frequently find that if I leave BARD open for a while that when I come back to BARD after doing something else I get the message that it failed to decode. I must then close BARD 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 BARD 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 BARD , and the Feedback option in BARD support page how to captcha that I could not solve even after multiple tries.

by Screaming Eagle 7

BARD 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 BARD 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 BARD 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.

by ⚜Yvianne

I love this app mobile. It gives me access to books at times when using the full size player isn't feasible... Like when I'm exercising or shopping. A bug that was in the original program is back in the latest update. The screen stays on and uses a lot of battery. Also I cannot use any other app while listening to a book. So when my transit app sends a notification that my bus is coming or my husband texts me, it interrupts the book and I have to manually click on BARD and start button to resume reading (this app does not respond to voice commands) you fixed this once, I have faith you can do it again 👍🏻😃

by BasenjiBuddy

The this app service is a wonderful thing, and provides much-needed support for those of us with visual issues. There are so many ways but BARD could be made better, smoother, and easier (especially for those of us who can’t see well, or not at all.)

For an app in the genre, voiceover support is a must, and it would be nice if someone took the time to get feedback from users who require it. Much of the functionality is slow and cumbersome and does not need to be.

Perhaps the Library of Congress would be willing to gather up some volunteers to test BARD and make it better. It’s such a great service, it deserves a better app.

by Cbatrdfan

App used to work beautifully. But, about a month ago or two months ago, the controls stopped working correctly. When you try to back it up a minute or five minutes, 3/4 of the time it doesn’t work. Plus, when you try to find books, and you asked to go back to the summary page, it used to go back the spot where you last were, which is extremely helpful for visually impaired people. Now it always goes back to the beginning, which is a real problem for visually impaired people.

by Quinton Williams's

As the title suggests, BARD works well for the most part. However, I notice the ability to side load seems to be broken, and I don't understand why there is a 100 downloads a month quota. In addition, I'd like the ability to see which devices are signed into my account and remove them as I see fit. Other than this, BARD seems to function as expected.

by Tiny Kittie

I'd like to suggest it would be pretty cool if you could see or listen to books where you left off on multiple devices instead of having to start over and not see your books and your wish list anymore it would just be pretty awesome if you could listen to the book where you left off crossed devices so that way you don't have to re-download the books are east of us if you have more than one device

by Ladyeush

The this app website and BARD are a beautiful thing. I listen to audio books and I. Tell you, some of these narrators are incredible. You can tell they love their job which I appreciate. However, I hate that if I’m listening to a book on my phone and want or need to move on to my IPad, I have to redownload the book and find my spot. It would be nice if BARD updated on all devices. Example, if I download a book using this app on my phone, i can see it on my IPad. If I book mark a book on my IPad or Finnish reading it or delete it, it would show on my phone, etc. thank you so much for all of your hard work.

by Procrastination Princess

BARD doesn’t currently work on my ipad but does on my iphone. It is the best thing that has happened for physically impaired people. I’m visually impaired as well as afflicted with arthritis in my hands and arms. I can now go about my day while listening to any of thousands of books, books that my library doesn’t have, books that companies want to charge me send me for too much money! It has literally enhanced my life. Just go ‘national library of congress for the blind and physically handicapped’ and check out their ‘enrollment’ section. It’s free for the physically handicapped and it’s wonderful

by TXNR535

This is a very good app. However, I have a suggestion. It would be neat to be able to share books with patrons. That way if someone sees a book that they like, when you click on his page, you could share the link with other patrons. I just thought that would be an awesome idea. As it stands now, you have to find the name copy the name, paste it into an edit field, and the link of the book number. Just trying to make it easier for people to enjoy it more. For the most part BARD works great. Thanks

by Glandryiris

BARD is really good. In the settings tab, go to audio settings, and look for background play. You can turn it on or off. When left on, you can use other apps in the background. Underneath that is autolock during playback. Turn that on to have the screen automatically lock while playing a book. This is for those who are having trouble with reading.

by Gabor The Blind Guy

I’ve been blind for about six years now I can honestly say this app 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 BARD, 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.

by Mikeemahboi

Excellent app for accessing the this app library. Very well integrated with VoiceOver. I use it everyday for playing audiobooks from the this app website. Sometimes BARD has trouble accessing the website. It would be nice if the website were more integrated in BARD , but I understand the difficulties involved. Recent updates have significantly improved stability.

by 1012 Hash

Maybe it's just me, but why do I have to log in to BARD CONSTANTLY? On my kindle fire I stay logged in all the time, every time I open BARD I have to log in to get to search this app. And the other problems other reviewers complain about (battery drain, no hand off syncing between devices, notifications interrupting) make this a 2 star app. While it's great having access to books I would much rather use my player and have to wait weeks/months for a book before using the iOS app.

by Kit E.

I’m DeafBlind and looking for an app to read braille files. I was excited when I saw that you can export Braille files to BARD. I thought it would be a great edition to this app especially because this app Braille selection is kind of small.

Sadly, though it works beautifully with this app downloads, there’s a weird glitch with voice over where it can’t read the imported Braille file. It reads it with %$& signs, so it’s nonsense on the braille display. It does the same thing on iOS 11 and 10. I tested both just in case.

Please fix this, it would really expand my reading selection.

by Nods Abit

this app won't let you do anything while listening to a book anymore. It burns your battery up very fast because now you can't close the window or the book will shut off. I can't slip the phone in my pocket with bards open window without something being accidentally hit on the screen. This is a huge problem that you have been able to fix before. We all love this app and when its working great its worth ten stars plus, so can you PLEASE FIX IT AGAIN!!!'

by Sandyrn54

I wish that you could type author’s name in, so that it would bring up all the books by that author, instead of typing a initial and then having to-locate it. Also, the list is not enlarge able, nor will it zoom out. Really hard to locate books, when you are vision impaired.

by Alexa Alexa Alexa Integration

The first time I got BARD

I thought it was filthy trash because you had to login I called my local library and they gave me a password

Before I knew about voiceover I thought it was going to be a piece of garbage because blind people wouldn’t be able to use it when I got voiceover I thought this was the amazing-ist reader I’ve ever seen

And in the get books tab there should be a separate search button and when you type in the book you want it should just show you the books you need with the button next to it to add to the wish list not so much information either that or you just give the annotation before the wish list button
I really like BARD

by James Flack

I am blind in my left eye and the vision in my right eye is 20/50. It was getting hard for me read, eyes getting tired and hard to read. The Veterans Admjnistration Low Vision Clinic set me up with this. It is so fantastic!!!!! The audio books seem to go into more depth and brings the characters to life. I have had this since July 2019. I have listened close to 75 books so far.
Thank You
James Flack
SSgt, USAF (ret)