Blender to support tablets, starting with the iPad Pro
An early mock-up of how Blender’s UI could be adapted for use on an iPad: one of the mobile devices to which The Blender Foundation plans to port the open-source 3D software.
Blender is to get new editions designed to run on tablet devices, featuring interfaces adapted for use on smaller screens with pen-and-touch input, the Blender Foundation has announced.
Development has already begun in a new iOS branch of the open-source 3D software, and an early tech demo of Blender running on an iPad Pro will be shown at SIGGRAPH next month.
The Blender Foundation also plans to support Android tablets in future.
Why is the Blender Foundation working on tablet support in Blender?
In a post on the Blender Developer blog, Blender Head of Product Dalai Felinto commented that the decision was prompted by the increasing use of tablets by CG artists, both to work on the go, and as primary devices.
“Multi-touch interfaces like tablets have been common for years, but only recently thanks to increased processing power, have they started to serve as primary computing devices.
“To support Blender’s mission of making 3D technology accessible to everyone, it’s important to fully embrace these platforms.”
What does adapting Blender to run on tablets involve?
Although part of the work will simply be to get Blender running on tablet operating systems, a major component will be to adapt its UI for use on smaller screens, with pen-and-touch input.
According to Felinto, this will be done by “extending existing input methods, and improving workspaces and application templates, running on top of a regular Blender build”.
Will Blender’s feature set be simplified for the tablet editions?
In the blog post, Felinto comments that the new editions are intended to be the full version of Blender, just adapted to make them easier to use on tablet devices.
“There is no specific intention of simplifying or tailoring Blender to appeal to an audience that might not be familiar with Blender or 3D.”
What will the new tablet editions of Blender look like?
Above, you can see an early mock-up of how Blender’s UI might be adapted for use on a tablet.
It’s intended to explore how digital sculpting could work inside a single window, modifying the UI of the desktop editions to maximise screen space for the object being sculpted.
The menus are collapsed by default, and the Tool panel has been moved from a tab in the sidebar to a floating pop-up, with tool-specific settings shown in the floating panel.
You can see other mockups on the Blender Projects portal.
Which tablets will Blender support?
The work will initially focus on getting Blender running on Apple’s iPad Pro, with support for the Apple Pencil, with development taking place in a new iOS branch of the code.
It will be followed by “Android and other graphic tablets”: other devices namechecked in the blog post include Microsoft’s Surface range, Huawei’s MatePad tablets, and the MovinkPad, Wacom’s new Android drawing tablet.
When will Blender for iPad be released?
The iOS branch of Blender has only just been created, so a final stable release is presumably still a long way off.
The initial focus will be on “basic object manipulation and sculpting”, followed by support for Blender’s Grease Pencil toolset and storyboarding.
However, an early tech demo of Blender running on an iPad Pro will be shown at SIGGRAPH 2025 next month, and there “may also” be live demos at the Blender Conference in September.
I don’t use a tablet: will this affect me?
Although some of the UI and UX work is tablet-specific, some planned changes are platform-independent, and will feed back into the desktop editions of the software.
Workflow improvements that should become available outside the tablet editions include a Quick Favorites editor, a helper overlay with curated shortcuts, and icons in the sidebar tabs.
One change – to make the sidebar tabs toggleable – is already available in the current alpha build of Blender 5.0.
In the blog post, Felinto notes that the changes may also “improve [the] experience of using Blender on pen displays like [Wacom’s] Cintiq [range]”.
I don’t want to wait for an official version of Blender for Android: what can I do?
Blender already has an unofficial Android port – you can download the APK here – which has been getting a lot of attention within the user community over the past few months.
However, its focus is simply to get the desktop edition of Blender running on Android devices, so it doesn’t include the UI and UX redesign work covered in the story above.
Release dates and system requirements
There is no estimated release date for the iOS edition of Blender yet. Work on an official Android edition has not yet begun.
Blender is currently compatible with Windows 8.1+, macOS 11.2+ and glibc 2.28+ Linux. The current stable release is Blender 4.5. Blender 5.0 is due for release in November 2025.
Read more about the planned tablet editions of Blender on the Blender Developer Blog
Follow the development of Blender for iOS on the Blender Projects portal
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