The popular open-source 3D creation suite Blender is officially in development for iPadOS.

In a detailed blog post on their website, the Blender development team announced their plans to bring Blender to tablet platforms like the iPad and Microsoft Surface Pro. The goal is to deliver the complete Blender experience, with an interface adapted for multi-touch and stylus input. The team also hopes that some of the usability improvements developed for tablets can be applied to the desktop and laptop versions as well.

Blender for tablets is aimed at existing Blender users, it’s not meant to be a watered-down or introductory version. It’s designed to support a wide range of users, from those who use tablets as their primary devices to artists who rely on stylus-based workflows for specific tasks.

The tablet-optimized version is being developed in phases, starting with basic object manipulation and sculpting features, followed by Grease Pencil and storyboarding tools.

While the initial target is iPad and iPadOS, the intention is to eventually bring this tablet-optimized version to Surface Pro and Android tablets as well.

What Is Blender?

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite that’s become one of the most powerful and versatile tools in the industry. It supports the entire 3D pipeline, including modeling, sculpting, animation, rendering, and VFX. It’s completely free and licensed under the GPL, and is actively supported by the Blender Foundation, an independent public-benefit organization.

Release Date

The blog post doesn’t mention a specific release date, but does note that the team plans to showcase a tech demo of Blender running on iPad Pro at SIGGRAPH 2025.

Contributing

As an open-source project, Blender development is open to the public. You can follow along, and potentially even contribute, via Blender’s GitHub page.

My Thoughts

While I’m not an artist in any way, shape, or form, it’s genuinely exciting to see a tool as popular and capable as Blender coming to iPadOS. Blender is one of the rare examples in the graphics and design world where an open-source app isn’t just an alternative to Adobe tools, it’s a powerful and widely adopted solution in its own right.

I really appreciate that the development team isn’t simply copying and pasting the desktop UI onto a tablet. Instead, they’re thoughtfully adapting the interface and the app itself to the platform, without sacrificing functionality or power. With iPadOS gaining more professional apps in recent years like DaVinci Resolve and ZBrush it’s great to see that momentum continuing with Blender.

Link: code.blender.org