I figured it was about time to make a topic about the pocket edition of Minecraft, with the release of 0.4.0 alpha today.

Released on October 7, 2011, for Android devices (November 17 for the iOS version], Minecraft PE is Mojang's answer to taking Minecraft wherever you want to go. The game is currently $6.99 on the Android market.

The objective of the game remains the same as its original PC and Xbox Edition counterparts, where players can build virtual realities in a sandbox-like environment. However, the Pocket Edition lacks most Survival features present in other versions of the game. Currently the only mobs available are Sheep, Chickens, Cows, Pigs, Zombies, Skeletons and Spiders. The multiplayer mode is cross-platform compatible between Android and iOS.

Both the iOS and Android versions of Pocket Edition have the same gameplay, which is akin to that of the Classic game mode, with the following differences:

World is finite as in Classic version but there isn't infinite water at world corners.
World is finite as in Classic version but there isn't infinite water at world corners.
The terrain generation is similar to that of Alpha's. It lacks many biomes, generated structures, and there are only few small caverns.
With the survival update tools were added. These were: swords, shovels, pickaxes, axes, and shears.
In game items are wooden planks, cobblestone, sandstone, dirt, brick (block), gravel, stone, torches, ladders, yellow flowers, various shades and colors of wool, glass, cactuses, leaves, crafting tables, bookshelves, cobblestone, brick, and wooden stairs, stone, brick, and wooden slabs, oak and birch wood, iron ore, gold (block), iron (block), diamond (block), sugar cane, cyan flowers, mushrooms, obsidian, doors, fences, fence gates, sand, gold (ore), diamond (ore, coal (ore), lapis lazuli (ore and block), saplings, clay (block), snow (block), furnaces, and glass panes.
There is no visible sky.
Water is finite as compared to the infinite water in Classic.
It lacks many of the settings the Classic version has.
All blocks don't obey gravity.
Spawn points cannot be set.
Online (LAN) mode only allows 5 players can be on a single server.
Internet support is in development.
Crafting using the MATTIS system.
There is survival mode with pigs, sheep, chickens, cows, zombies, spiders, and skeletons.
The world size is 255x255 blocks.

  

    
    Android    
    
  

  

  


According to Aron Nieminen (developer of the Pocket Edition, the system requirements are:
Android OS 2.2 or later
The device must have a CPU that supports floating-point calculations ("ARM-v7a code")
The screen must support multi-touch
An internet connection is required to download the game
Full (or close) battery as 3D GPU gaming on smartphones quickly drains battery
The CPU known as "MSM7227 " (an ARMv6 processor without a floating point unit) is NOT supported, which unfortunately is in a lot of smartphone models.
The Pocket Edition doesn't work with devices that have processor speeds under 1 GHz and Android OS versions lower than 2.2.
Though some devices below these specs and OS versions have been known to work fine either with or without using a custom ROM image, kernel, and overclocking  the CPU.



  

    
    iOS    
    
  

  

  


- iOS 4.3.3

- 4.3MB spare storage (however, you will need about 100MB for world saves)

- A 600 MHz ARMv7 Cortex CPU/800 MHz Apple A4 CPU or better. (ARMv7 is required for floating point calculations)

In the Pocket Edition, crafting is somewhat different and uses the Minecraft Advanced Touch Technology Interface System (MATTIS) crafting system. Rather than having 2×2 and 3×3 grids, there are four categories down the left: Blocks, Tools, Food & Armor and Decoration. Tapping on each category brings up a list of items/blocks that are craftable from that menu. In each item, there is an area which lists the requirements. The first number is the amount of material collected; the second is the amount required. There is an item description under each item and it tells you what the item is used for. All you have to do then is tap the item wanted as many times as you want to get the desired number of new items. The newly created items show up in your inventory. Crafting is currently limited to survival mode only in PE and is limited to very small number of options.

You do have the option to use a crafting table to give you a lot more choices. You must first craft a crafting table. After you tap on the crafting table, the MATTIS pops up with options on crafting.

Minecraft Pocket Edition was updated to 0.4.0 this morning.

New features:

• Chests to store items
• Beds to skip night and setting your spawn point
• Creepers!
• TNT, and flint and steel to ignite
• Food items added: apples, bread, mushroom soup, beef, chicken and pork
• Added recipes: wool from string, green wool and stone bricks
• Added a Peaceful Mode option for survival mode without monsters
• Added wheat, seeds and hoe
• Added moss stone, redstone ore and white wool to creative inventory
• Added trap door
• Red dye can be obtained by cooking red mushroom
• Added several more dyes (combined from primary dyes)
• Zombies now drop feathers

• Made the day longer
• Limited the total number of a given monster type
• When using an item, the player’s movement speed is decreased

• Monsters could spawn indoors
• Added fall damage for clients
• Players could knock each other far away
• Incorrect bow rendering in 3rd person view
• Missing particles after critical arrows
• Stairs reverted back to their basic blocks when destroyed
• Charging the bow could destroy certain blocks (flowers, torches), or interact with blocks
• The game crashed if player was killed while having the bow charged
• Connecting players could die in creative mode
• Dark leaves sometimes had workbench texture
• Wrong crafting table size for Xperia Play
• Bow didn’t take damage when used
• Non-dark brown tree trunks are now added back to the game (you may need to start a new world as host)
• Destroying a door could leave half a door
• Missing spider death sound on iOS

Seems there is a somemore information out of the Pocket edition so I'm reporting it here when I found it.

Here is the complete list of changes coming with the 0.5.0 update for Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

New features:

Paintings
Mushroom farming
Melons
Zombie pigmen
Nether Reactor
Glowstone
Tweaks:

Restore hearts when sleeping in bed
Food now restores more health
Tweaked the fog to make the game less foggy
It is now easier to get out a bed
Bug fixes:

The game could crash when loading a saved game [MCPE-442]
Animals would sometimes never respawn in a map [MCPE-272]
Using an item could sometimes attack animals/players when not facing them [MCPE-269]
Spawning by a bed sometimes resulted in the player being several floors up from it [MCPE-51]
Seeds would drop below grass block when using the hoe [MCPE-7]
About 25 additional bug fixes

Source:http://www.examiner.com/article/mine...igmen-and-more

I hadn't planned on posting about it until it was officially released. Maybe I'll just make a more detailed post about the update once it's out.

Pocket Edition 0.5.0 is now out, and several of the secrets are now revealed. The Nether Reactor is the pocket edition's version of a nether portal. It requires three diamonds and six iron ingots to make the core, plus an additional 4 gold blocks and 14 cobble in a specific pattern around the core to make the reactor.

Minecraft PE 0.5.0

Additions:

• Blocks:
  • Mushroom farming
  • Melons
  • Paintings
  • Glowstone
  • Nether Reactor
  • Glowing Obsidian
  • Nether Reactor Core
• Mobs:
  • Zombie Pigmen

• Food heals more health
  • MCPE-20 - Food not restoring the right number of hearts
• Easier to get out of bed
  • MCPE-51 - Bed: Respawn at the wrong height?
  • MCPE-105 - You can't exit your bed with Split Touch controls
• Restore hearts in bed
• Hearts are now at the top-left of the screen and not above the hotbar anymore
• The game is less foggy
• When jumped on, crops turn back to dirt
• Sugar Cane can now be grown on sand
  • MCPE-408 - Sugarcane is unable to be placed on sand
• You now see the name of the item or block when you select it in the hotbar
• New animations for Zombies, Skeletons and Zombie Pigman

• MCPE-1 - Trapdoors can't be crafted in survival
• MCPE-2 - No description at Smooth stone in crafting bench
• MCPE-4 - You can't leave your bed when sleeping
• MCPE-6 - No explosion sound when creeper explodes
• MCPE-7 - Seeds drop below grass block when using hoe
• MCPE-11 - Survival bugs: Crop tiles survives farmland destroyed underneath them
• MCPE-14 - When destroying the top half of a bed in creative mode, it give a bed back as a resource
• MCPE-17 - TNT, Flint and Steel and Stone Bricks aren't available in the creative mode inventory
• MCPE-18 - Grass block not available in Creative mode inventory
• MCPE-23 - Door Duplication
• MCPE-27 - Not possible to activate peaceful mode
• MCPE-29 - Trapdoors can be placed on transparent blocks like flowers, saplings, glass etc.
• MCPE-30 - Placing door on a farmland will create a floating half-door
• MCPE-46 - Torch can be placed on side of fence
• MCPE-57 - Multiplayer infinity bone meal
• MCPE-93 - Players sleeping in a bed can be pushed off the bed
• MCPE-115 - Breaking block with torch on it
• MCPE-134 - Can't sleep with my half slabs around a bed
• MCPE-160 - Lava burns character when lava is several blocks away
• MCPE-172 - Stone bricks: Missing description
• MCPE-189 - Missing Fence Sound Effect
• MCPE-190 - Farmland and other plants bug
• MCPE-216 - Steel and flint don't take damage
• MCPE-218 - Bed: Should sleep when pressing the bottom end
• MCPE-237 - Extra Feathers For Player 2
• MCPE-261 - Player can fly out of the world
• MCPE-269 - Using an item can sometimes attack animal/player when not facing them
• MCPE-272 - Animals sometimes never respawn in a map
• MCPE-303 - Sleeping at the edge of the map causes you to spawn really high in the sky after you die
• MCPE-345 - Torches Jumping off Fences
• MCPE-370 - Trapdoor placement bug
• MCPE-382 - Player 1 places torches on ground, but player 2 sees them on the wall
• MCPE-387 - Stuck when walking down side of fence when reaching closed gate
• MCPE-390 - Cannot select stone brick stone in creative
• MCPE-422 - Crash when loading saved world
• MCPE-491 - Disappearing trapdoors

• Worlds crash when a player tries to open a chest.(On some devices)
• Sometimes when harvesting seeds with a hoe the seeds still go through the block it was harvested from.
• The tooltip/name for block for the Cyan flower says "Rose"
• Melons grow multiple melons
• The seeds for the melons are pumpkin seeds in the PC version
• Melon slices have a red background
• Paintings and Glowstone don't have a description
• There are two stone bricks in the creative inventory (iOS only)

This time a duo of updates have been released: 0.6.0 and 0.6.1. 0.6.1 is a critical bug fix for 0.6.0.

Minecraft PE 0.6.0

Notice for Android users: Starting with this update, Minecraft Pocket Edition will require Android 2.3 or later. This means the game no longer supports Android 2.1 or 2.2, but you will still be able to play older versions of Minecraft Pocket Edition.

Additions:

• Signs
• Armor - Applying process is similar to smelting: choose from armour on the left and see a preview of the player on the right
• Baby animals - Baby animals only spawn in new worlds.
• The Sky and Clouds (Appearance varies between fast and slow devices)
• Improved D-pad
• Design is more blocky and less rounded
• When in flight mode, there is a "wing" icon on the jump button
• Sheep can be colored with dyes
• Blocks:
  • Netherrack
  • Nether Brick
  • Block of Quartz
  • Chiseled Quartz Block (creative only)
  • Pillar Quartz Block (creative only)
  • Cracked Stone Brick (creative only)
  • Mossy Stone Brick (creative only)
  • Stone Cutter
  • Chiseled Sandstone
  • Smooth Sandstone
• Stairs:
  • Nether Brick Stairs
  • Sandstone Stairs
  • Stone Brick Stairs
  • Quartz Stairs
• Slabs:
  • Sandstone Slab
  • Stone Bricks Slab
• Items:
  • Nether Brick (item) (smelted from netherrack and crafted into nether brick tile)
  • Nether Quartz
• Upside-down stairs, corner stairs
• Slabs can be placed in up position (needs testing on small screens)
• Sand and Gravel are affected by gravity

• Recipes for crafting slabs give 6 slabs instead of 3 (as in PC version)
• Nether Reactor spawns Netherrack blocks instead of Obsidian
• The fog and sky color have changed
• The Nether Reactor now spawns more items
• Cows drop Leather
• When holding a slot in the hotbar, to toss an item out, the frame of the bar turns green as well.
• Melons can be crafted with 9 melon slices.
• (For some Android devices only) The way to go to the pause menu, is to use (<-) instead of (|=|)

• MCPE-143 - Doors, trap doors and ladders does not drop correctly in survival when adjacent to destroyed blocks
• MCPE-356 - Blocks placed where ice was don't show up in multiplayer
• MCPE-581 - Two stone bricks in creative menu
• MCPE-591 - No description for Paintings or Glowstone
• MCPE-592 - Watermelons grow back nearly instantly
• MCPE-612 - Melon seeds have pumpkin seed sprite
• MCPE-613 - Paintings deflect arrows
• MCPE-642 - Cactus can't grow on sand block near water
• MCPE-668 - Charging the bow breaks pictures
• MCPE-717 - 1 melon stem can produce 2-4 melons
• MCPE-722 - Torches when placed underwater do not drop
• MCPE-883 - Wrong sugarcane drop from the reactor and creative mode
• Melon Slices had a red background.

• When placing blocks/signs after the update released, the next time you load the world, the blocks disappear.
• Sugarcane has a red background
• Pixel bug when you see yourself move in the armor interface.
• Description for armor is false.
• Quartz, Sandstone, and Stone stairs vary depending on which direction they are place.
• When damaged, only the helmet of the entire armor set turns red.
• When dyed Sheep are hurt, you can see through the sheep's legs.
• When placing a torch on the floor of a one-bloock wide space, the torch will be placed on the wall instead.
• When sand and gravel falls, they will disappear often.

• Crash Bugs: multiplayer chests and Sign input
• Newly put on armor items would overwrite old if it wasn't removed first
• Half slabs get stuck in "upper" position
• Xperia Play controls (Android)
• Nether Quartz and Stone Brick stairs having random texture
• Nether Quartz stairs not having a language file name

0.9 is close to coming out. The new features are:
Endermen
Villagers
Slimes
Wolves
Ocelots
New biomes
Infinite worlds!!
Caves
Flowers
Stained clay
Cocoa beans
Silverfish(maybe)
And much more!
I can't wait for 0.9 to come out it looks so great I am on 0.8.1 right now.

Infinite worlds worry me a little. I highly doubt they'll be truly unlimited, considering how large minecraft PC worlds can get filesize-wise. One region [512x512] is around 4MB in size. Doesn't seem like much, but it grows exponentially [a 8000x8000 MC map takes up 1GB in disk space].