Yey, MCPE 0.8.1 has been submitted. Besides multiplayer/realms fixes, it should also fix keyboard issues on Android. :)
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) December 18, 2013

• Added Chicken Jockeys
  • Consist of a Baby Zombie riding and controlling a Chicken
    • Because the Zombie is riding a Chicken, it cannot take fall damage
    • As it is a Baby Zombie it will not burn up if exposed to daylight
  • Extremely rare - every Baby Zombie spawned has a very small chance of spawning as a Chicken Jockey
• Sheep with the custom name "jeb_" change their color, fading between all 16 wool colors ^[2]
  • Commonly reffered to as "Rainbow Sheep", "Disco Sheep", or "Jeb Sheep"
  • Color changes are visually only; does not affect wool drops
• One click broadcasting to Twitch.tv ^[3]
  • Microphone can be recorded too.
  • Chat integration in the game. ^[4]
  • Several new settings^[5]
    • Twitch Broadcast Settings
      • Quality, Framerate, Bandwidth, Send Metadata, Mic Volume, System Volume and Compression
    • Twitch Chat Settings
      • Enable and User Filter
• New Mojang splash screen - logo is now red instead of red-orange, has 2 square corners, and the rounded corners are rounder. The text is black instead of orange, the font weight is lighter (bold instead of black), and the face appears to be a custom hybrid of Insignia and Code Pro.
• The Sharpness enchantment now affects the "attack damage" attribute.
• Minecraft Realms servers now have an icon which is the face of the owner's skin

Fixed 38 Bugs: [hide]

MC-107 – Potion of night vision: total blackout MC-190 – Misaligned textures on south and east faces for non-full blocks MC-2488 – The Unicode font is illegible in fullscreen mode MC-5002 – Some texts can't be translated in a language file MC-11129 – Unicode font text shadow in fullscreen mode MC-12413 – Furnace GUI - "full" arrow texture always drawn on leftmost column MC-12964 – Server performance issue: Chunk coordinates use a bad hash function MC-14323 – Minimising other windows open, resizes Minecraft window MC-16259 – Enchantments not showing stats in tooltip. MC-23132 – Click or right-click stuck on OS X MC-26102 – OS X Fullscreen is not supported MC-29469 – Unable to take screenshot in GUI or active chat line MC-30300 – Minecraft Mac Command Key Glitch MC-30527 – Achievement "Adventuring Time" does not work MC-30537 – Flower duplication glitch MC-31006 – Adventuring Time — list of visited biomes resets on login MC-31388 – Right clicking a flower pot that has certain plants in it while holding another plant replaces the one in the flower pot with the one you're holding MC-31622 – Wrong render distance beyond 8 and more chunks settings. MC-32295 – Glitchy item borders with Mipmapping and Anisotropic Filtering activated MC-33035 – Loading text in Polish (and other languages with Unicode font) isn't showing properly MC-34573 – Font file of Unicode Page C2 (Korean) shows character '숼'(U+C23C) at the position of '쉴'(U+C274) MC-35617 – Cactus has incorrect inventory image MC-35643 – Items with enchantment effect cause blocks and potion effects indicator to not render MC-35658 – Water too transparent? MC-35797 – Background Rendering Issues When Picking Up Enchanted Items / Caption of containers white MC-35856 – Multiple Background Songs Playing At One Time / Automatic music overlap MC-35897 – Damaged armor, tools & weapons placed in certain inventory slots cause other slots to go black MC-36159 – Graphical glitch on beacon effects in inventory screen. MC-36329 – Rendering glitch when looking at river through stained glass MC-36383 – Translucent parts of stained glass not visible in 3rd person mode MC-36395 – Weird rendering of transparent blocks on the 0-axis[6] MC-36482 – Upon exiting (shift click) minecart, the range and criteria is drastically off, up to 8 blocks away MC-36705 – Block held in 3rd person rendered incorrectly MC-36772 – Enchanted items have big enchant around whole item MC-37106 – All the textures are flipped/mirrored on north/east sides of blocks MC-40255 – Falling Invisible slime causes "blue screen" MC-41135 – Players become invisible+immune for PvP damage, after being killed and relogging instead of respawning MC-41165 – SetSlot packet can no longer set item under cursor MC-41508 – Hopper: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Not a JSON Object: "

Oh, and we also released the Beta build 8, if you want to find some horrible last bug that will send us into pre-release panic!
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) December 6, 2013

• Improved Signs and Chests synchronization lag in multiplayer
• Sand and Gravel now spawn resources when falling on torches, etc

• Fixed clients placing the wrong block type in multiplayer
• Fixed double chests becoming unpaired
• Added back hurt and fire color overlay for mobs
• Fixed minecarts not being able to go all the way from bedrock to sea level (stopping at level 32)
• The chest inventory now refreshes when two players change the content at the same time

XCode didn’t really want to cooperate, but we have submitted 0.8 to Apple! Android final will be out together with iOS :)
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) December 6, 2013

• Moved Grey Wool in the right inventory slot
• Ice is not transparent anymore in the toolbar
• Wooden tools can now burn
• Added UI message when boarding minecarts
• Removed useless D-pad arrows when in minecarts
• Powered Rails are powered in hand and in the inventory
• AI performance improvements

• Fixed text input on Android
• Fixed spruce and birch leaves being swapped
• Fixed furnace side texture
• Fixed sandstone slab side texture
• Fixed red hurt overlay skeletons and chickens
• Fixed an artifact over the flame in the Furnace Screen
• Tnt doesn’t send you into orbit anymore
• Fixed Armor slots having no health bar
• Fixed autojumping while in minecarts
• Fixed falling into the ground exiting a minecart that’s on rails

• No UI information about how to get out of minecarts
• Not removing disconnected player correctly (known since 0.7)
• Hearts now don't show if joining while animal is already in love
• Minecarts end up in walls in a very specific rail configuration
• There is no item pick up animation
• TNT doesn't destroy some kinds of blocks, in some worlds
  
  There are still some bugs, which will be fixed in the final version of 0.8, before it can be submitted to Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.

• Blocks:
  • Birch and Spruce Wood Planks, Slabs, and Stairs
  • Block of Coal
  • Carpets
    • All 16 colors in creative mode
    • Only red carpets in survival mode
  • Cobblestone Walls
  • Hay Bales
  • Iron Bars
  • Jack O' Lantern
  • Rails
    • Powered Rails (always powered)
  • Creative-Only:
    • Jungle Wood, Leaves, Wood Planks, Slabs, and Stairs
    • Sponge
    • Dead Bush
    • Mossy Cobblestone Walls
    • Snow (cover)
    • Cobwebs^[2]
• Crops:
  • Beetroots
    • Although Beetroots will be a source of red dye, Red Mushrooms still will give red dye when smelted. ^[3]
  • Carrots
    • Rarely dropped from Zombies
  • Potatoes
    • Rarely dropped from Zombies
  • Pumpkins
• Items:
  • Beetroot Seeds
    • Have a 1/15 chance of popping out from grass when hoed
  • Clocks
  • Compasses
  • Minecarts
  • Pumpkin Seeds
  • Redstone (cannot be placed as Redstone Dust until 0.9.0)^[4]
  • Ink Sac (currently unobtainable in survival mode)
  • Cocoa Beans (crafted from Orange dye and Inc sac).

• Foods:
  • Beetroots
  • Beetroot Soup
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Pumpkin Pie
  • Baked Potatoes

• Blocks/Items:
  • Bone Meal
    • Nerfed like in the PC edition
    • Can grow Ferns and Tall Grass in survival and creative
    • Now grows Sugar Cane to maximum height (exclusive to MCPE)
    • Pumpkin and melon stems only grow by one when bone meal is used
  • Flowers now spawn other flowers when Bone Meal is used
  • Fire and lava now ignite TNT.
  • Redstone Ore now drops Redstone when mined^[4]
  • Sideways pointing wood blocks
  • New bow rendering & animated items
  • New fire effect
  • Remade painting rendering
  • Thrown eggs now spawn baby chickens.
  • Flowers
    • Position is now randomized
• Graphics:
  • 3D Clouds with new tessellation algorithm
  • Held items are now rendered in 3D, and bob up and down slightly
  • Lighter colored Water, Sky, and Grass
    • Water fades to non-transparent in the distance (iOS only)
  • Mipmaps (iOS only)
  • Refactored most of the rendering to use indexed VBOs
    • Remade arrow model
    • Inventory is now rendered using cached VBOs
    • New sky rendering using a triangle fan
  • Separated far and near chunks in two queues for performance reasons
    • Fog only on far chunks
    • Transparency only on near chunks
    • Alpha-test-only layers are hidden in far chunks
  • Lighting
    • Stencil Shadows
    • Dynamic PC-like lighting on entities
    • Ambient light tinting
    • Light direction depends on sunlight direction - affects shadows (exclusive to MCPE)
• Inventory/GUI:
  • Creative Inventory Additions:
    • Flint and Steel
    • Ice
    • Bedrock
    • Shears
    • Dyes
    • Tall Grass and Ferns
    • Cobwebs
  • New Creative Inventory, with four item categories
  • Transparent hotbar
  • Tapping the [...] will close the inventory while open.
  • Craftable recipes are shown first in the crafting screen
  • When selecting an item in the inventory it replaces the one in the selected slot
  • Changed the flow of Inventory for the Armor/Crafting screens so that the back button goes back to Inventory
• Mobs:
  • Breeding
  • Improved Mob AI System (Mobs will swim over deep water, and hostile mobs will be more intelligent)
  • Animals follow you when holding wheat (potato, carrot or beetroot for pigs)
• New defaults and changed options:
  • Added far (256) and farthest (400) rendering distances
  • Removed smooth lighting (now always on)
  • Fancy is now default on
  • Default rendering distance is now far
• Textures:
  • Brought all textures from PC
  • New texture atlas and texture generator script
  • Changing:
    • Gravel texture from  to 
    • Birch Leaves texture from  to 
    • Lapis Lazuli Block texture from  to 

New creative inventory! :) pic.twitter.com/MoAD03Zqym
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) November 18, 2013

New feature for 0.8.0, beets! Can be turned into dye and soup. :) pic.twitter.com/BsF743yuMG
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) November 14, 2013

I like this thing whatever it is, let's just ship it pic.twitter.com/QKzKReIV8t
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) November 12, 2013

0.8.0 is not yet done. Hopefully out by the end of November.
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) October 28, 2013

oh yeah right. Here, have a screenshot! pic.twitter.com/pp4Zk6HiG0
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) October 18, 2013

yay afterthoughts! I was fixing the bow, and the clock and compass became easy to add.. It's neat when it happens! pic.twitter.com/glDOB9L2dV
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) October 23, 2013

Starting to add new blocks for 0.8.0. Jungle and sponge will only be added to creative for now. :) pic.twitter.com/sDbKoH9Ipp
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) October 15, 2013

And now also pumpkins and pumpkin pie. :) pic.twitter.com/Bg03tYPuSU
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) October 15, 2013

And finally added Carrots and Potatoes, more tomorrow! :) pic.twitter.com/WOC9iuzZKi
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) October 15, 2013

Yesterday, I also implemented Walls. I need to start using them everywhere now. :) pic.twitter.com/jBWtamH2gt
— Johan Bernhardsson (@jbernhardsson) October 17, 2013

After thousands of errors, the 0.9 masterplan begins to make sense.. dat cache heatmap! oh and caves are nice, too! pic.twitter.com/UqHpBvvyPj
— Tommaso Checchi (@_tomcc) October 30, 2013