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  • Published 23 Mar 2020

Blender for... iPad?

Hello community, I have been thinking about this possibility for a few months, taking into account the power that an iPad Pro gives us in addition to this, portability. I think many artists would like to have the possibility of using Blender on our iPad.

What do you think of this? Is there a rumor? It would be great if the developers could tell us something about that.

cdealmeidar
23 Mar 2020

5 Comments

yusamac205

Hi! I'm working to try and modify Blender for the iPad. No promises, but hopefully I can get past the complications that Christian mentioned. I mean, it'd be a lot simpler, to begin with. I'm just hoping that I can get a working prototype or something.

3
christianclavet

* @yusamac205 * Hi, Apple announced recently, that it would try to port Blender to the new IOS. So just wait until they release it. It would be a "universal" application that run on the new CPU they've made. It should run on the new IMAC and the rest of their hardware (ipad, probably IPhone)

1
christianclavet

Hi Carlos! 😊
Personnally, I doubt it:🙄

  • The source would need to be cross compiled for another type of processor (Apple A10)
  • The source would need to be modified so the rendering can happen on OpenGL ES (2.0). or run on METAL. OPENGL ES 2.0 is quite old and different in capabilities than OpenGL. METAL is apple only, but the dev are currently working to port the graphic rendering from OpenGL to Vulkan, and from there there is a possiblity to use MoltenVK (translate Vulkan to Metal) so it could use the capabilities of METAL on a apple device.
  • The source would need to be modified to be able to run on iOS.
  • Apple would need to allow it via it store.

This would only perhaps happen if Apple would made an effort and provide patches. It's their ecosystem and they keep it closed.

But if you need portability, that is possible currently on Linux or Windows now. I use a used Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (tablet with pen) and Blender run fine on it.

2
Sencer

* @Christian Clavet *

Yes, but the 2020 iPad Pro has a Lidar browser.(Wouldn't it be great to scan 3D objects with Lidar scanner and transfer them to Blender?) More powerful than most computers on the market. and damn this product is iOS.

christianclavet

* @Sencer * You could ask Apple to make a fork of Blender: "Apple Blender iOS" and it would work on your device. (You might have to pay for it, but it would be an Apple only product) 😊