Top 10: Creative tasks with an iPad

6: Virtual Sculpting

Modelling with clay, or even just Playdough, is undoubtedly great fun. 3D modelling on the iPad might seem over-ambitious, and judging by the preponderance of one-star ratings from customers for iDough (£4.99), maybe it is. We like it, though – and there’s a free version called iDough! HD, which runs for five minutes per sculpture to let you make up your own mind.

There may be no higher purpose, but squeezing virtual dough into interesting shapes is certainly fun

While most 3D modelling software for the PC is highly mathematical, iDough’s touchscreen interface makes it feel more like sculpting with clay. It would help if the seven tools were labelled (the website informs us that they’re Push, Pull, Smooth, Move, Pinch, Spread and Flatten). However, with a bit of trial and error, we were fashioning wizened faces, strange fruit and an assortment of other occasionally recognisable shapes from a starting point of a perfect sphere.

Straight lines proved impossible to achieve and the underlying wireframe mesh didn’t lend itself to complex shapes such as a whole person, as it started to get quite blocky by the time we’d got down to the feet. However, as creative distractions go, it’s a fine way to spend £5.