BARD mobile on iPhone 11 problem

By John, 21 October, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Greetings, I have been using BARD mobile to read talking books since it was first released. So several different iterations of the iPhone and iOS. When I upgraded to my iPhone 11 I started experiencing consistent problems. What happens is I will be playing a book, I lock the screen, it plays for a while maybe five or 10 minutes and then the application crashes and of course play Ceases. I unlock my phone go back to Bard and find it at the point in the book where I had locked the phone. So I have to jump forward find my position and start playing again.

What I have done, I have confirmed that the settings in BARD Mobile are correct. I have uninstalled the app and reinstalled it, twice. And there have been several iterations of iOS since I first experienced this problem. And it is 100% consistent. I did not experience this problem with iOS 13 on my 10R.
Has anybody else experienced this or other problems with the Bard mobile on an iPhone 11? Does anybody have any ideas of maybe something I can do to resolve this? I have contacted NLS. Also Apple accessibility. Apple requested a system diagnostic report.

I am currently running iOS 13.1.3

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Comments

By Curtis Chong on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Greetings:

You should report this problem directly to NLS. I suspect something is amiss with the BARD Mobile application.

By Greg Wocher on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Hello,
I do not think this is a bard app problem. I have seen similar behavior in other apps. I have encountered this issue in voicedream reader and overcast as well. I think it is an issue with background audio playback in general. I am using an iPhone 10S on iOS 13.1.3 and I have been seeing this since I updated to iOS 13.

By Melissa on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I have the iPhoneXS, and I'm experiencing the same issues. They haven't had an update for a long while now, so we're about do for one. Perhaps we should contact NLS.

By peter on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I have observed the same problem with Bard Mobile since updating to iOS 13 on my iPhone XS. I will start playback with the phone unlocked and Bard Mobile active. Then I lock the phone, listen, and stop playback when using my AirPods. If I then unlock the phone and start playback, Bard Mobile seems to be running in the background. So I open it from the app switcher and then start playback from within the app. Annoyingly, playback starts back at the time when I locked the phone.

Very frustrating. Yes, I certainly hope the NLS will release an update soon with new features and support of some shortcuts. It has been a long time.

Otherwise a great app though. I'm off to use it now!

--Pete

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I agreed with Melissa. I have same problem with iPhone XS and iOS 13.1.3 My issue also is that if you want to go to the next chapter by tapping next button on the lack screen does not work. Sometimes also If you select go by chapter instead of something else, it changes.

By Travis Roth on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I hope that everyone who is experiencing issues will report directly to NLS so they can track it. They can't look into something they do not know about. The direct email address is:
NLSdownload@loc.gov .

By Melissa on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

In reply to by Travis Roth

I just contacted them myself. Not only that, I contacted my local library. Hopefully this will be resolved sooner rather than later..

By John on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Yes, please do report this to MLS. But also report it to Apple accessibility. Like I said they had me provide them with a system diagnostic report from my phone. So they are looking into this.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Just send an email explainingmy bugs with iPhone XS and iOS 13.1.3

By Curtis Chong on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I am using an iPhone 8. Not having a problem with BARD Mobile at all. I'm running the latest iOS 13.1.3. I think this is kind of hardware specific. One thing: I do have Raise to Wake turned off. Thanks.

By Adrianne on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I have the exact same problem on my iPhone 11 running the latest IOS. I initially solved it by just leaving my phone unlocked. But then I locked it again one time out of habit and I didn't have the problem. Now I only have the problem sometimes, but less than half the time. I will also report to NLS - thanks for that email address!

By Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯 on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Hey! I haven't experienced this issue, but I have been having 1 very annoying issue. Started with Ipad-Os. 13 4 me. Any time I hit a button, like play, it'll say: `space play` If I hit the tabs on the bottom, it's fine. It's very annoying!
But, I haven't seen the issues u guys are seeing. But, I don't lock my ipad mini 4 when playing anything. I've gritted my teeth in the hopes that an update from Nls. will fix the space issue, or an update from Apple will fix it. Plus, in my book, if that's the only issue I'm dealing with on Bard Mobile app, then I'd say I'm doing pretty darn good! Because the buttons work as expected, but they just... well... space out! lol

By John on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

For me this is a big deal. I like to maybe play a book, lock the screen, and place the phone in my pocket as I’m doing other things. Having to keep the phone unlocked is very inconvenient.

I’m glad to know others are experiencing the same thing. Misery loves company.

My wife is still waiting for her 11 Pro to show up. She’s on a 10 S right now and not experiencing any problems.

It may be something Apple can remedy. But I would really like to see Bard mobile get some love from the programmers. They don’t maintain it well. And it really needs some more features. I have a wish list. But this isn’t the topic. But one I will toss out there, I would love to be able to sort my wish list by author, or series.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

In reply to by Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯

Yes. That is one that makes me nuts but Bella the cat does not mind because she is mean and wants me to go nuts. I think she wants my home.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Got the following suggestion from them. Good luck I will do this later.
We've been seeing some odd behavior in BARD Mobile with the IOS 13 update. The first thing to try is to re-initialize your device. To do this, please remove BARD Mobile from the App Switcher and follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings.
2. Go to BARD Mobile.
3. Go to Setting Initialization and toggle it from Off to On.
4. Start the BARD Mobile app. It will force you to log on.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Please be aware that if you follow above instruction, you probably will need to reset your password. I had to go to the web page in my PC which it had old user name and password. Works in PC but not in bard mobile. I reset my password in my PC and added new password in bard mobile. Works but if you had books that you were reading you will need to reload them again. I will see if this fixes the bugs.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Well. It did not work. Now when playing an audiobook stops after a while. Jumping to next chapter does not work.

By sockhopsinger on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I am curious when you are playing books in Bard and the playback kstops, are you using headphones, the phone speakers, or both? If just headphones, are they wired, Bluetooth, or wireless? I'm just curious if everyone who is having these issues is using the same methods of listening.

No headset. Just the iPhone.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

In reply to by Dawn 👩🏻‍🦯

Check this out.
I would suggest navigating your books from within the app, rather than the lock screen, for the time being. Playback works well with the latest iOS 13.2 beta, so I think you'll have better results when iOS 13.2 is released.

here's a work-around that will fix the "Space" problem:

1. Ask Siri to open VoiceOver Settings, or go to Settings, open Accessibility, and then open VoiceOver.

2. Open Activities.

3. Choose Add Activity.

4. Name your activity BARD Mobile. This isn't necessary, but it will make it clearer what the purpose of this activity is.

5. In the Verbosity Settings portion of this page, double-tap Punctuation, and then double-tap None.

6. Use the scrub gesture or the Back button to return to the Add Activity screen.

7. In the Automatic Switching section, choose Apps.

8. Double-tap BARD Mobile to select it.

9. Back out of this screen and the Add Activity screen.

Now whenever you open BARD Mobile, no punctuation will be spoken, and you won't hear the word "Space" when you use the controls.

As for Dark Mode, I know that enabling Dark Mode will be a feature in the next release of BARD Mobile. In the meantime, you can open Display & Text Size in Accessibility Settings and choose an option like Smart Invert Colors when you use BARD Mobile.

I hope that helps.

By sockhopsinger on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Okay. Thanks for answering the question about the playback and the freezing. I was hoping we could help eliminate one of the issues if it was just one listening device that was being troublesome.

By Justin on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Hi,
One thing i've noticed is that even in other apps (Learning ally audio) for example, when you're listening to a book, and you lock your device after a few seconds it'll stop playing the book just like in bard. I'm guessing this is an iOS 13 issue and not a bard thing. I may be wrong, but ah well. Playing with phone's built-in speakers.

By Roxann Pollard on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

As others have mentioned, I can confirm having problems with BARD freezing, jumping back to a much earlier location in the book, and saying the space word when pressing stop. I also see freezing issues with Apple Music. I'm running iPhone XS with iOS 13.1.3. Here's hoping that Apple fixes this soon.

By sockhopsinger on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

The only app I am having trouble with is, ironically, Bard. After all of the discussions on here and after my earlier bragging that I had no problems with iOS13, I downloaded some books and locked the screen to put the phone to sleep. Literally 30 seconds later, the app was closed and playback had stopped. Guess that'll teach me to brag about phone stability. Hah.

By Melissa on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

I had been informed by NLS that this issue will be resolved in iOS13.2.

By Holger Fiallo on Saturday, October 26, 2019 - 14:30

Well. Now stops after playing a chapter and does not shows on the lack screen. Also when I go back to the app to play, it start at the beginning of the chapter I was listening. I can not use the app like that. I am stopping the app because I am going to brake something do not want to do so.