# Bard: Fiction Podcast Player — Audio Drama and Actual Play

> Fiction podcast player for audio dramas, actual plays, and narrative serials. (iPhone/iPad app by Michael Schofield.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bard-fiction-podcast-player/id6760264469 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Michael Schofield](https://appshunter.io/developer/1883524401)
- Category: Entertainment, Books
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 15.1 · 44 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-09-03
- Data updated: 2026-10-28
- Monetization: free with in-app purchases

## What is Bard?

Bard is a podcast player for fiction - anthologies, audio dramas, actual plays, horror serials, full-cast epics.

These types of podcasts don't fit the mold most podcast players are built around.  Bard organizes your shows the way you actually immerse yourself in these fully-cast productions, as seasons and series you work through. It's a better listening experience for people who binge stories.

CURATION AND LIBRARIANSHIP

Bard's index is curated by a librarian and categorized into genres, game systems, and types of performance. No chat shows, no news, no true crime. To discover new shows you swipe through recommendations like it's a date with a book. The recommendation engine is tuned by what you play, shelve, and rate: genre, game system, tone, and the shows you passed on. The award winners are here, but the biggest shows do not need the help, so smaller series and new work get a nudge.

VERIFIABLY HUMAN

The limelight is reserved for stories performed by people. Where it can be verified, AI-generated production is flagged and pushed down.

BUILT FOR BINGEING

- Episodes oldest-first, with season filtering
- Continue listening, recently added, and all caught up, at a glance
- A shelf for episodes saved for later, and for shows you set down partway
- Playback speed and sleep timing
- Your position syncs across devices
- Import the shows you already follow from an OPML file

FREE, AND BARD PRO

The whole player is free: follow unlimited podcasts, discovery, the shelf, and cross-device sync. It is supported by small visual ads that promote only fiction podcasts, never anything else.

Bard Pro adds offline downloads and removes those ads. Monthly or annual. Ads inside episodes come from the shows themselves, so no player can remove those, and Bard does not pretend otherwise.

MADE BY ONE PERSON

Bard is made by one librarian on weekends. Feedback goes straight to them, gets read, and gets a response. 

Bard Pro is an auto-renewing subscription: $4.99 per month, or $44.99 per year. Subscriptions are billed to your Apple ID and renew unless turned off at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel in your Apple ID settings.

Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Privacy Policy: https://playbard.fm/privacy

## Key features

- Organizes by season and series
- Curated by a librarian
- Genre and game system categorization
- Human-verified content prioritization
- Binge-listening features
- Cross-device sync
- OPML import

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bard Pro Monthly | $4.99 | per month |
| Bard Pro Annual | $44.99 | per year |


## Is Bard safe?

Not enough ratings yet to assess Bard.

## Is Bard legit?

Bard: Fiction Podcast Player has limited verification signals. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Bard is 58 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.


## Frequently asked questions about Bard

### What kind of podcasts can I listen to with Bard?

Bard is specifically designed for fiction podcasts, including audio dramas, actual plays, horror serials, and full-cast epics. It filters out chat shows, news, and true crime to focus on narrative storytelling.

### How does Bard help me discover new fiction podcasts?

Bard features a curated index categorized by genre, game system, and performance type. You can discover new shows by swiping through recommendations, which are personalized based on your listening habits and ratings.

### What are the benefits of Bard Pro?

Bard Pro offers offline downloads for your favorite fiction podcasts and removes the small visual ads that promote other fiction podcasts. It is available as a monthly or annual subscription.

### How much does Bard Pro cost?

Bard Pro is available for $4.99 per month or $44.99 per year. These subscriptions are billed to your Apple ID and will automatically renew unless turned off at least 24 hours before the current period ends.

### Is Bard suitable for younger listeners?

Bard has an age rating of 12+, making it suitable for teenagers and older. The content within the podcasts themselves may vary in maturity.

### How often is Bard updated?

Bard was last updated on October 18, 2026, with version 1.2.2. The app is developed by a single person, and feedback is directly incorporated into updates.

### Can I sync my listening progress across devices with Bard?

Yes, your listening position syncs across devices with Bard, allowing you to seamlessly continue listening on your iPhone or iPod wherever you are.

### Does Bard feature AI-generated content?

Bard prioritizes stories performed by people. Where AI-generated production can be verified, it is flagged and de-emphasized to ensure a human-centric listening experience.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.2.5 — 2026-10-26

- Show details like genre, systems, content type, and so on are now tappable. If you tap one, it will start a search.
- Cleaned up the in-podcast navigation to help you sort or hide what you've played or jump to a season.
- Made the scrubber knob look better.
- Added new unfollow reasons, like a show just being too big of a commitment.
- Improved navigability a bit on the phone.
- Light redesign to the web player to take advantage of a much wider screen.
- As best as Bard can tell, shows that have finished are marked complete and can be searched. This isn't perfect, but some additional refinements are coming soon.
- Patreon and coffee links are more prominent right in the main player.
- Made it easier to mark everything as played.
- Search loads a lot faster.
- Other quality-of-life changes and patches.
- Search can skip shows in languages you don't read. You choose the languages in Account, and English is always on. Typing a show's name still finds it in any language.
- There's a "Released recently" filter in search.
- Search results come in sections: full matches first, then shows Bard doesn't have yet (with where they were found), then partial matches.
- You can queue a whole season.
- On the web player, you can drag to reorder the queue.
- You can follow a show from the full player when you don't follow it yet.
- There are two new playback speeds, 0.75x and 1.75x, in the player and in Account.
- When you import an OPML file, you choose which shows to bring in before anything is followed.
- Story arcs have descriptions.
- A strip under the top bar says that there are notifications waiting for you in your account.
- Podcasters can link to their show on Bard from their own site. The link opens the show, or asks Bard to add it if it's missing.
- A show you follow now shows up when you search for it by name.
- A show with only a trailer no longer says "All caught up"; it says "Trailer only".
- "Shelve this show?" is gone, and every show it hid is back on your home screen.
- "Drama" is gone as a genre, since every show here is audio drama.

### 1.2.2 — 2026-10-18

- Shelves and podcasts are now deep linked on iPhone. When someone follows a link to a show and they happen to have the app installed, it should open Bard.
- Recommendations should stop suggesting shows whose feed has been dead for weeks, and by dead, we mean unreachable.
- While we are not getting rid of public domain audiobooks like Winnie the Pooh, those aren't really audio drama, and so we're going to omit them for now from the discover page.
- The season finished card on the main page now leads with the season or story arc you finished, with the show's name underneath.
- When you finish a season, you are asked to rate it or even help spread the word.
- I refine story arcs and side stories a bit to count them as kinds of finishes.
- Any show that is listed on one of the award shelves will now say so on its page.
- The Audio Verse Awards shelf now goes all the way back to 2016.
- Refined sorting so that the search that you're looking for doesn't disappear during the sort.
- I think the phrase "most seasons" was getting it wrong when podcast feeds were numbered incorrectly. This should be patched.
- Patched an issue where, just because a show's feed linked to its hosting company, it thought that was the show's website. For instance, Critical Role's website is not SiriusXM.
- Made the language a little bit clearer on the Pro subscription paywall.

### 1.2.0 — 2026-10-15

- You now have shelves (what other podcatchers call lists). You can't actually make a list yet, but what you'll find are award winners there and, in the future, other things to browse.
- Fixed an issue with the sort order in search.
- Fixed an issue where shows with really large back catalogs weren't showing whether they were daily or weekly cadenced.
- Links in show and episode notes now look like links.
- Tapping a show's website on an iPhone opens it again.
- You can now share episodes with just one tap.
- Fixed an issue where Buzzsprout podcasts weren't working on Android.

### 1.1.1 — 2026-10-14

- Shows with named stories, like Critical Role's campaigns, now group their episodes by story arc, with each arc's size and whether it's still going.
- Tap Arcs on a show's page to see its stories and how far you are through each one.
- Open an arc to see just its episodes, and play it or continue where you left off. Its next few episodes are added to Up Next so you stay in that story.
- On the web, first-time visitors see a short card explaining what Bard is.
- Dragging to reorder Up Next works again on iPhone.
- Patreon links on show pages that went to the wrong page now go to the right one.

### 1.0.1 — 2026-10-11

- Improved episode sharing.
- Improved the ad buying process.
- Fixed a bug where episodes with 0 minutes left to listen offered to let you continue listening.
- Fixed a bug where the main page hero and the resume cards came out short when episodes had ads inserted. It used to be off by the ad length.
- For iPhones with a notch or a Dynamic Island, the Up Next title and back button no longer sit behind it.
- Search results no longer come back after you reset filters or tap a genre tag.
- A failed sign-in with Apple now shows an error instead of quietly dropping you back to the sign-in screen.
- On the web, sharing an episode from the full player now closes that share sheet when you're done.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-28.*