Testing Blender 5 on iPad Pro — a personal experiment that sparked a bigger discussion about mobile 3D workflows

A few weeks ago, I decided to compile the Blender 5.0 Alpha build on an iPad Pro (M2) — partly out of curiosity, partly to challenge the assumption that “serious” 3D work can only happen on desktops. I posted a short write-up with screenshots on Reddit, expecting a handful of hobbyists to react.

Instead, it triggered hundreds of comments, debates about input methods and app distribution models — and even resulted in an article on 80.lv covering the experiment. That response told me something important: we’re on the edge of a major shift in how and where 3D creation happens.

Last year I started using ZBrush on my iPad Pro. It's industry standard for sculpting in all major studios. And this year Blender announced it's own version made for iOS.

I used Blender source code from official GitHub repository, iOS branch to compile and run it.

Overall it took around 45 minutes, and after compilation Blender 5 finally ran on my iPad. I have a stylus so I immediately tried to use it for sculpting and need to say - it works.

Blender runs pretty smoothly, but it seems that UI is not optimised yet or Blender team uses some private branch with their iOS experiments because I saw only standard and not optimised for mobile UI.

Nevertheless, it worked, and I found it difficult to close popup windows, so for example, when I rendered a picture, I needed to close the entire app since I didn't find how to close it inside Blender.

The application doesn't follow Apple guidelines for UI, and it's a known fact, but I assume developers in Blender are preparing something interesting for release.

I don't know if it will be released with the new major version of Blender. But version 5.0 looks like a very good moment to make such a release.

I will continue following upcoming developments and check how it works because I have a passion for 3D for a long time.

And it's really amazing that everyone can sit near the airport gate and sketch the next new story or 3D model with an iPad, portable and easy, using such free software like Blender.