Here's how to get the Pocket Edition 0.12.0 beta

Today might as well be Christmas, because we now have betas of Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.12.0 alongside snapshots of Minecraft PC 1.8 and the first beta of Minecraft Windows 10 Edition. If you're ready to jump in, here's how to get the beta for 0.12.0.

NOTE: Apple users cannot join the Minecraft PE Beta, because Apple does not support open beta trials and limits closed ones to 1,000 people. Blame Apple, and please don't ask us or the developers to release the betas on iOS.

You will need:

• Phone or tablet with Android 4.0 or higher, with the Google Play Store (Kindle devices do not have access to the beta)


• Google account that has purchased Minecraft PE on the Play Store

Instructions:

1. Make sure you are logged into Google Plus on your computer (these instructions sometimes don't work properly on mobile, if you can do them on a computer it's better) and go here.


2. Click the 'Join Community' button at the top.


3. Below the name of the community on the left side, click the gear/settings icon and uncheck "Show posts in Home Stream." If you use Google Plus at all and you leave this checked, your stream will be filled with spam from the community (mostly people with no patience asking when it's coming out and spam).


4. Go here and click "Become a tester."

You're done! The first beta will be available as an update in the Play Store soon after that. Mojang recommends that you backup your Minecraft worlds before updating, as the beta can corrupt old (and sometimes newly generated) worlds. We recommend this as well, especially considering the first few beta releases are always glitchy. Enjoy!