Java Edition Beta

Beta is the current development phase in Minecraft. It was announced on Notch's blog on December 11 2010 and released nine days later, on December 20, 2010. As well as some minor updates, the transition from Alpha saw a 50% price increase (therefore making the cost 25% off the full price), a change in the disclaimer (Notch removed the line that said "all future updates will be provided free of charge") and minor updates to the main website. Beta 1.2 was released on 13 January 2011, it included Cake which was added after Minecraft won the Mod DB 2010 "Indie Game of the Year" award.

Major New Features

 * Server-side inventory.
 * Cloak support.
 * New Blocks (Note Block, Sandstone, Dispenser)
 * New Mobs (Squid)
 * Wool Dyes

For full changes, see Beta version history.

A new fix
When beta was started, Mojang fixed the tiny problem, that many people had realized was wrong. Before December 20th, Creepers could be seen during the first morning and day you are in the map. This was wrong, because, There couldn't have been any creepers (or any mobs, for that matter (Seen in caves)) in the first day because there was no night previously. This means no mobs could have spawned, (Except for maybe in caves). But now it's a much more rare occurance you'll see a creeper up top the first day.

2 other add-ons 1.02
Dyes, (Article 2.0) were added in the 1.02 update (January 13) and so were Squid, (Article 2.0), so they don't really belong up there. Those are supposed to include features that were added when Beta 1.0 came out, which, was not much except for the cloak (Same, 2.0).