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Minecraft Pocket Edition Update Offers Endless Creativity

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Minecraft Pocket Edition for iOS and Android devices has just been release and offers a host of new feature to help players get more creative and ambitious with their creations.

Firstly the update adds an interact button which makes it easier to stop whacking things you don’t mean to. We’ve then got a new crafting screen to make that essential aspect of the game easier and an absolute ton of new blocks have been slotted in to make the experience closer to the vanilla game as possible.

Out in the world we have new biomes too, adding and updating existing ones so you have 13 in total to journey, mine, craft and get blown up by creepers in. Or chased by Endermen as they make their warping journey over to Pocket Edition along with Slimes, Wolves, Mooshrooms and Silverfish.

World generation has been expanded and includes more trees, boulders, lakes, underground mines and the all-important emerald ore making it much more capable of creating interesting worlds than before.

Perhaps the most significant change is that the Pocket Edition now lets you keep on walking as long as like and never bump up against the edge of the world. That’s an improvement over the current console versions which are still limited to small world sizes.

Here's a full list of improvements for fans of Minecraft:

New features

  • Unlimited worlds!

  • New culling algorithm

  • New culling of clouds

  • Tile entities are saved differently

  • New falling mechanics for gravel and sand

  • New insta ticking of water and lava

New blocks

  • Podzol

  • Mycelium

  • Huge mushroom blocks

  • Cocoa

  • End portal frame

  • Double plants

  • More stairs/slabs for new wood types

  • New log types (savanna tree and dark oak)

  • New leafs (savanna tree)

  • Monster egg

  • Stained clay

  • Waterlily

  • New flowers

  • Red sand

  • Hardened clay

  • End stone

  • Granite

  • Diorite

  • Andesite

  • Emerald block

  • Emerald ore

  • New leveldb based saving format

  • New entity handling

  • New crafting screen

  • Remade network code (mostly the same packages but new system).

  • New interact button (to make the game easier for new players)

New mobs

  • Slimes

  • Endermen

  • Wolves

  • Mooshrooms

  • Silverfish

New and updated biomes

  • Deserts

  • Extreme hills

  • Forests

  • Redwood taiga

  • Roofed forests

  • Frozen

  • Jungle

  • Savanna

  • Mesa

  • Mushroom island

  • Taiga

  • Deep ocean

  • Swamps

New world feature generation

  • Sand

  • Boulders

  • Ice patch

  • Ice spike

  • Spike

  • Lake

  • Double plants

  • Ground bushes

  • Fancy oaks

  • Jungle tree

  • Mega jungle tree

  • Mega pine tree

  • Savanna tree

  • Swamp tree

  • Huge mushroom

  • Tallgrass

  • Waterlily

  • Vines

  • Melons

  • Pumpkin

  • Dead bush

  • Monster rooms

  • Desert well

  • Fallen logs

  • Emerald ore

Tweaks to caves

  • Lava at the bottom of caves

  • Caves in desert and mesa

  • Strongholds

  • Villages

  • Villagers

  • Abandoned mine shafts

  • Flat world generation

  • Limited world generation

  • “New” mob spawning

  • Updated light generation

  • Grass color for different biomes

  • Foliage color for different biomes

  • Water color for swamps

New AI

  • Spiders

  • New leaf rendering

  • Added more spawn eggs in Creative Mode

  • Added immersive mode for Android

  • Added drip particles for water and lava

  • Updated create world screen

Tweaks and bug fixes

  • Correct name for stairs, slabs and spawn eggs

  • Beds no longer gives full health in normal difficulty

  • Smooth lighting added for:

  • Beds

  • Fences

  • Walls

  • Cobwebs

  • Chests

  • Leaves

  • Smooth lighting removed for:

  • Glowstone

  • Glass

  • Jack ‘o’ lanterns

  • Improved performance of TNT

  • Prettier clouds

  • The fog is darker underground

Known Bugs

  • The block highlight flickers (z-fights) when more than 10k blocks distant from spawn

  • Changing the view distance while in a world might crash the game

  • If players walk too far from each other in multiplayer, they can’t see each other

Known bugs requiring attention

  • Multiplayer is a bit fragile. Please test it and report all issues to us!

  • The LevelDB save format + upgrading of old maps. Please report any data corruption!

  • Crashes in general – uncommon and random crashes might still happen

If you don't have an android or iOS device you could also consider the upcoming Minecraft PlayStation Vita version that will also let you play on the go:

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Andrew Robertson
Andy Robertson is the editor of AskAboutGames and has written for national press and broadcast about video games and families for over 15 years. He has just published the Taming Gaming book with its Family Video Game Database.