The idea
Coaches, doesn't just block.
Noctua pauses on the murky middle and offers things to notice — then hands the choice back.
🦉
Minerva
Coming soon to the App Store
Minerva
Coming soon to the App Store
Needs Apple Intelligence-capable hardware — M-series Macs and iPads, iPhones from A17 Pro. No Apple Intelligence, no browsing: Minerva fails closed.
Meet Noctua — a gentle owl who reads every page before your child does, right on the device. He waves the good stuff straight through, pauses on the murky middle to help them think, and quietly closes the door on the truly unsafe.
Noctua pauses on the murky middle and offers things to notice — then hands the choice back.
Every judgement is made by Apple's on-device model. Parents see titles and time — never content.
Pair each child's devices with a quick code; settings flow down, activity flows back — through your own iCloud.
Every reason shown. The log you read is the one they can open — rule changes included.
Most kids' filters just say no. Minerva would rather raise a reader who can eventually judge for themselves — so it teaches, in a voice a child trusts.
Three outcomes, not one. Clearly safe pages open at once. Genuinely harmful ones are closed. In between — a news front page, a mixed result — Noctua shows it and pauses, offering things to notice, then hands the choice back to the child.
Every page is judged by Apple's on-device AI. The words on the page never leave the device — not to us, not to a cloud. A grown-up can see that a page was visited, never the text on it.
The goal isn't a walled garden forever. It's a child who learns to spot bias, selling, pressure and dubious claims — so that, one day, they need the owl a little less.
Watch how the same quick check sorts a page into one of three outcomes.
This website needs a little caution.This page is a news front with some grown-up stories, which is worth a careful look.
If anything worries you — now or later — tap me to slip away, or talk to a grown-up. It's always your choice.
This page had some scary pictures that aren't right for you.
If you think I've got this one wrong, ask your grown-up — they can allow this site from their Minerva app.
The murky middle is coached, not banned — and parents draw its edges. Every concern is a dial — Block, Ask first, Allow — and “Ask first” is what sends Noctua in. He never tells the child what to choose, and never asks a question. He offers things to notice, then it's their call. Open any story from it and that story gets its own fresh check. And if the model can't judge a page at all, the page doesn't show — Minerva fails closed, always.
A child taps a link. Before a single word renders, the page enters the gate — keep scrolling to follow it.
First, the deterministic layer — no AI, no judgement. Your lists rule absolutely, in both directions.
Then Apple's on-device model reads the page's actual words against the fixed floors and every concern you've dialled to Block.
Safe pages face one more question: is it worth a careful look? Only the concerns you set to Ask first apply here.
Three doors out — and if the model can't answer at all, the page simply doesn't show. Minerva fails closed, always.
Child opens a page or search
Lists first — never negotiable
On-device model reads the text
Worth a careful look?
AllowedCoachedBlocked
YouTube gets the same three-way judgement — and then Noctua stays for the whole video, reading the captions as they roll.
Title, channel and description are judged on-device before a single frame renders — under a hard appropriateness gate no dial can lower. Parents set per-genre stances and can allow or block whole channels, either way.
Noctua reads the hidden subtitles in real time. If a video starts to drift, he pauses it with a gentle note about what changed. If it goes properly south, he stops it there with a past-tense reason.
Watching along is real-time, not pre-emptive — he can't object to a scene neither of them has seen yet. He reacts the moment the words turn, not a minute after.
Set it up locally on a single device — or oversee everything from your own, with reports and alerts flowing to you privately.
A safe browser set up right here, protected by a parent PIN. No console, no cloud, no reports — the settings live on the device.
Set up on your phone, add your child, and pair their iPad with a quick code. Your settings shape the owl itself — each concern is a dial, Block · Ask first · Allow, and “Ask first” is exactly what fills Noctua's murky middle. Activity and alerts come back to you — privately, through your own iCloud.
🔒 Either way, the promise holds: the words on a page never leave the child's device. A grown-up sees titles, sites and time — never the content itself. And nothing is hidden from the child: the activity log you read is the same one they can open, and when you change a rule they see that too, in a “what your grown-up changed” feed.
No jargon about “roles”. Minerva opens by asking what you actually want — a grown-up console, a device to connect to one, or just a safe browser here. Pick a card and it guides you the rest of the way.
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