Last summer, the team behind the open-source 3D creation software Blender made waves when they announced plans to bring their full suite to the iPad Pro. They even showed off a working demo at the SIGGRAPH conference. Now, that plan has hit a major roadblock. Development for the iPad version is officially on hold.
Blender is shifting priorities to Android
A recent update on Blender’s GitHub page for the iOS project plainly states that the work is paused until further notice. When a community member offered to help with development, Blender developer Dalai Felinto confirmed the shift in strategy. The team is now choosing to prioritize the Android tablet version first, putting the iPad app on hold.
Taking an incredibly dense, interface-heavy desktop application like Blender and adapting it for touch controls is a massive undertaking. Open-source development relies heavily on community testing and rapid iteration.
Distributing test builds on Android is incredibly simple through sideloading. On the Apple side, developers have to jump through hoops using TestFlight, manually managing user IDs and permissions.
This means there’s a long road ahead for iPadOS
What this really means is that prioritizing Android gives the Blender team a much easier path to test and refine their new touch interface. Once they solve the core user experience problems on an open platform, they can theoretically bring those proven solutions back to the iPad.
There are also ongoing questions about how Blender’s open-source GPL license interacts with strict App Store rules, which might be contributing to why Blender shelved the iPad app behind the scenes.
The good news is that the project does not appear to be canceled entirely. The hardware inside modern Apple tablets is clearly capable of running the software. It is simply a matter of resource allocation and development logistics right now.
Since development has halted, anyone planning to buy an iPad Pro specifically to run Blender might want to wait. It will likely be a while before we see a public release.
