

For better visibility on mobile screens, blocks being aimed at are highlighted rather than outlined. For instance, the crafting system uses the MATTIS system and items are disposed of by long-tapping their icon on the toolbar. To comply with the disadvantages of touchscreen gameplay, several features were revised. Interactions are made via touchscreen (both the iOS and Android versions of Pocket Edition have the same gameplay ). The HUD and other elements are adapted to mobile standards of gameplay.

The multiplayer mode is cross-platform compatible between all touch-screen devices capable of running Pocket Edition. Like its counterparts, Pocket Edition also has survival elements present in other versions of the game such as brewing, hunger, and dimensions like the Nether and the End. The objective of the game remains the same as its Java and Legacy Console editions counterparts, where players can build virtual realities in a sandbox-like environment.

Minecraft Pocket Edition Lite, which was essentially version 0.2.1 without world save functionality and had limited inventory items, was available until October 21, 2013. On September 13, 2012, the Pocket Edition was made available for purchase on the Amazon Appstore. It was later released for other Android devices on October 7, 2011, and iOS on November 17, 2011. Pocket Edition was initially launched exclusively for the Xperia Play on Google Play for US$6.99 on August 16, 2011. To assist with clarification, the Minecraft community referred to these versions collectively as Bedrock Edition due to Bedrock being the name of the C++ codebase from which they all derive. When these editions received the Better Together Update, the "Edition" subtitle was removed, and the official name for all of these editions became Minecraft. Pocket Edition introduced the Bedrock Engine, which was later ported to non-mobile platforms as four other editions of Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition, Gear VR Edition, Apple TV Edition, and Fire TV Edition. Minecraft: Pocket Edition (informally known as MCPE or PE) was the former title of the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft developed by Mojang Studios for mobile devices before 1.2.0, although subsequent builds are still commonly (if erroneously) referred to as Pocket Edition.
