Maybe you don’t need full mac os. Maybe if they just allow to install and use .dmg-like format as apps. Like provide a tool for devs to build an app installer to be distributed freely or through other platforms. I don’t see apple allowing buying and distributing apps outside it’s app store lol.
Even if all of that were possible, running Blender without Python isn’t- and Apple isn’t about to start letting people execute python scripts on iOS- which is why I suggested macOS. That said, you may as well be waiting for hell to freeze over, because neither is likely to happen.
Like I said, better to buy a Surface 
I see, well this situation sucks.
lol no.
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I’m curious if anyone actually reached out to Apple Developer support and simply said “hey we want to port Blender but we can’t purely because of licensing - what can you do to help us out”. It’s not like Apple internally hates Blender or something. Software licenses get redlined all the time for special partnerships and this would be a MAJOR win for both parties, so I’m curious if anyone simply asked the question…
this is some serious blue sky wishful thinking. have you missed the past ten years where Apple has done everything in their power to reinforce their walled garden, including but not limited to major lawsuits? hey sure, I guess they’d make an exception for Blender and open up a huge back door on their most valuable platform so we can have the convenience of doing some animation on the train 
Too hard, don’t try - got it.
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Too hard, don’t try - got it.
No, not at all. Go for it. Ask Apple yourself and then report back here what their answer was.
Apple probably doesn’t hate blender indeed. The GPL however…
I cannot speak for the organization, nor enter into any negotiations or deals on its behalf. The only people who can do that are the people who operate the org. THEY are the people who can ask. So, no - you can’t shift this into a ‘personal responsibility’ thing.
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Microsoft hated it as well and fought harder against it than pretty much ANYONE. Now a whole Linux subsystem can be installed to sit in the middle of modern versions of Windows. I’ve done enough business development and worked with enough attorneys to understand that pretty much anything is possible if the parties want to come up with a solution.
It’s really not like that. Your original question was like “Has anyone asked Ford if their cars can run on pixie dust?”. I guess with the number of people in the world the answer is “probably yes”. Then you say “this question would be best coming from an automotive engineer”. Uh no, the people who actually understand this stuff already understand all this stuff.
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Also: you can’t make Apples questionable behavior Blenders responsibility.
Apple have repeatedly made it very clear that:
- they are not going to allow anything in the appstore which can execute (python) scripts.
- they are never going to change their appstore terms to make them compatible with the GPL.
If you personally would like to keep flogging a dead horse, that’s fine (and if enough people do it, maybe even useful in the long term). Demanding Blender spends time and energy on it is not too useful.
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I was under the impression — and correct me if I’m wrong — that Apple was helping with the efforts to get Blender fully Metal compatible for macOS in the next release. If that’s true, that must show some good-will between the organizations and a glimmer of hope that maybe they’d be willing to help out on the iPad front too…
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Isn’t Apple even a Patron Sponsor for Blender? Though I wonder why their logo never appeared on the Fund page.
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I use a mouse and keyboard with my iPad so that isn’t an issue.
The logo appearance is optional and a decision of the patron, Apple declined the option to have their logo there.
There is a keyboard and a mouse for the iPad Pro, but in this thread many other problems are explained
It “can”, theoretically speaking, happen, but it requires a lot of work and in the end I think it won’t be redistributable.
Using Blender on my iPad with Apple Pencil would be wonderful, I know that I can already do this with Sidecar but a native app would be much better.
Apple is a patron supporter so it’s not like they hate Blender, if Apple is supportive of an iPad port I don’t see why they can’t make a “special exception” to Blender’s GPL license… Also regarding the python scripting, can’t you just make a version where the python console isn’t accessible.
I hope that there is more interest in the Blender dev community for working on an iPad port (possibly only for the M1 iPads). Though this is mostly wishful thinking because it will probably not happen.
I’d love to be able to install Android on my iPad too, but it’s not going to happen. Look, I’m all for wishful thinking and I’m right there with you- Blender on an ipad would be totally amazing! But if you guys are just going to ignore reality when the facts are staring you in the face, you’re just wasting everyone’s time (yours included). If you don’t understand the fundamental differences between a mac and an ipad as a business platform, regardless of what chips they happen to have (they could be carbon copies of each other, it does not matter!), this conversation is already beyond your comprehension.
Let’s all just dive into this fantasy world where it’s possible for a moment, shall we? C’mon it’ll be fun, humor me.
Let’s pretend that you were a supercoder with infinite amounts of free time and decided to take on this task all by yourself as a gift to the world- so generous! After a month of heavy surgery you’ve got it compiling on iPad. It’s everything you dreamed it would be- and it runs so fast! You email your contact at apple and let them know the good news. Ah bummer, your contact says that Apple will NEVER allow it on the app store with a python interpreter, nevermind the GPL license. Turns out letting users run python could create a backdoor to the ipad’s bootloader?? no idea what that means but it sounds bad right!?
Okay so you remove python. EZPZ right? Wrong! Nearly all aspects of the interface rely on Python, and that’s ignoring the myriad of addons that people rely on every day for their work. It’s a bummer, but we all have to make some sacrifices, lets remove Python, and the people who use addons (spoiler alert: all of them, remember- exporters are addons too!) can just deal with it.
Now you’ve done all the work to remove python, and spent a ton of time rewriting the interface to completely bypass Python. Not so fast- apple requires all ios applications to be touch-first, pencil second, mouse/keyboard a distant third. So now you’ve got to redesign the entire interface to be 100% touch-first using Apple’s guidelines (hint: it’s not just making your finger a mouse cursor, that’s too easy).
Your enthusiasm for this project still overflowing and your stamina far from depleted you dive into the task- constantly fielding inane suggestions and requests from everybody on the internet who is suddenly a UX expert (this is an open source project don’t forget), you finally reach your goal and have a touch-friendly version of Blender that does not use Python that everyone on the planet is happy with! Congrats!
Okay, NOW the GPL is a problem.
Let’s pretend (hey why not, right?) that Tim Cook is friends with your Uncle, and at the neighborhood BBQ you casually pop the question over a few beers and he seems into it. Still buzzing, he goes and convinces the board that it’s a great business idea to make this one exception (it’s not), and the board goes with it. TOS updated with an asterisk for Blender. You have successfully moved a mountain, nice job!
After all of this hard work you watch the appstore dashboard with bated breath. You get 8000 installs your first week, maybe 1500 of those stick around after that. Turns out your target audience was a niche of a niche and you made a huge miscalculation on the amount of effort compared to the payoff. Now you spend the rest of your life trying to maintain a dead-end fork monkey patching changes from mainline into your frankenstein port. THE END. THATS THE STORY.
and with that, I’ll see myself out of this thread forever 
PS: if you want Blender on an iPad, maybe start asking Apple to allow MacOS on iPad yeah? Same hardware right, should be a no-brainer!
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I’m not sure there’s much more to say here, and as it says on the top of every page, this forum isn’t meant for feature requests anyway, so I’ll close this thread.
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