Blender support for tablets has been a dream for many users for years, and things finally started moving about a year ago, when the Blender Foundation announced plans to explore native, on-the-go support. But since then, there hasn't been much news, as the initiative is currently on temporary hold.

So, what happened since then, and why is the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, which was supposed to be the first platform for testing this concept, no longer a priority? Dalai Felinto, Blender's Head of Product, addressed these questions in this thread:

Android support is definitely being worked on, as shown in this new video from Blender. And if you have an Android tablet running Android 13, you can actually help out too.

Blender is already known to work on high-end Android tablets, but developers are now testing the waters to figure out what's needed to support a wider range of devices. Right now, they're missing detailed information about which extensions, properties, and features these tablets actually support.

You can find detailed instructions on how to install a client tool, along with the list of devices needed for testing, here.

Naturally, this news raised questions about why Android is being prioritized over iOS. After all, with how popular Procreate is on the iPad, you'd think Blender could do really well there too. But honestly, it's a pretty sensible move. As mentioned earlier, funding is an issue, and Apple also has FOSS licensing and build-upload restrictions that make things more complicated. Android tablets are cheaper, easier to access, and also popular for drawing and other creative work.

Let's see how this develops. In the meantime, you can also support another cool Blender initiative: Overgrown, a feature film that aims to create an open-source resource for artists working on large-scale animated productions.

Of course, people have brought Blender to tablets unofficially before. Here's a look at Sergei Almazov and Trung Nguyen's attempts to run Blender on an iPad, along with an Android showcase from notrealadnan.

Subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform, Discord, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

Are you a fan of what we do here at 80 Level? Then make sure to set us as a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our content in your feed.