Privacy is not a feature on the Nodle app. It is the DNA. Every update we ship gets measured against one question: does this give users more sovereignty over their digital life? This release answers that question five times over.
The next Nodle app update ships a fully local AI model we call the Turtle. It runs entirely on your phone. Nothing leaves your device. No prompts sent to a remote server, no behavioural profiles built in the background, no silent training on your conversations.
The Google Gemma 4 base is serious engineering. It uses LiteRT (Google's lightweight runtime for optimized model execution), integrates with Hugging Face for model management, and supports a growing list of capabilities. Nodle is building custom skills on top of this foundation, tuned for the specific needs of the Nodle and Click ecosystem.
The name is not accidental. Turtles carry their home on their back. Your model does the same.
The Turtle ships with a set of carefully built skills, but we are not going to list them all here. Half the fun is discovering what it can do. Fire it up, push it in unexpected directions, and share your favourite use cases with the community and on socials. Every workflow you share helps us understand what matters most to real users and directly shapes which skills we build next. This is user-inspired development by design.
Every Nodle app user receives three pre-minted envelopes, each containing a Turtle NFT. These are built to share. Send one to a friend who wants a fully private AI, a decentralised end-to-end encrypted chat, or a single app where they can earn, hold and spend crypto across multiple chains. No lengthy onboarding explanation needed. The envelope does the talking - they open it, they're in.
Onboarding through ownership hits different from a referral link. It says: here is something real that belongs to you now.
The Nodle app now supports Bitcoin and Solana assets alongside its existing multi-chain foundation. Hold, send and manage BTC and SOL directly from the same sovereign wallet that already handles your NODL, USDC and NFTs. One app, more chains, full self-custody throughout.
This release also brings solid under-the-hood improvements: better performance across the app, cleaner error handling so failures are obvious rather than silent, smarter fee handling to reduce friction at the worst moments, and a round of UI polish that makes everything feel tighter. Not headline features. Just the craftsmanship that turns a good product into a daily companion worth trusting.
Smartphones are not data centres. The Turtle can be slower than a cloud model on heavier queries, and the better your device, the better it handles the load. Newer hardware with a dedicated neural processing unit will simply give you a smoother experience. The team keeps optimising with every iteration to push performance further across the board.
This is a deliberate tradeoff, not a gap. You trade some raw speed for complete ownership. The Turtle cannot be taken from you. It cannot be inspected by a third party. It does not phone home. Slower sometimes. Sovereign always.
Download the update, set up the Turtle, and put it to real work. Then come tell us what you found.
What worked? What surprised you? Where did it feel slow? Which skills would make the biggest difference in your daily life?
Your feedback directly shapes the roadmap. The next batch of skills gets built from what the community actually needs. Share your experience, break things on purpose, and help us build the most useful private AI companion on the market.
The turtle moves at its own pace. But it always carries its home. 🐢
