Minecraft 1.9 Update Info!!!

1.9 Info:

The End:

• Ender Dragon fight to be massively overhauled, changed to be the same as console edition fight; some obsidian pillars have cages, preventing players from just shooting the caged beacons. Dragon will come down and fight the player on the ground once a certain damage threshold is reached
• "Dragon's Breath" drop?
• Dragon will be (optionally) respawnable
• More islands in The End to explore (will require defeating the dragon to reach) via ender gateways
• Ender City; will only use The End materials in construction, no materials from the normal world. New end-specific blocks added - both in buildings and naturally-occurring "plants" in The End
• "Plants" can be cut down like sugar cane, collapsing all pieces above the one cut down
• To plant these new plants, a flower on the main stalk must be harvested, cannot just place a base plant piece in the soil
• New hostile mob, "Shulker": camouflaged as a type of block, hiding inside; can shoot projectiles
• Shulker projectiles deal damage, but also cause player to levitate uncontrollably for a time. Projectiles can be attacked with a sword like Ghast projectiles, though they are destroyed, not reflected
• "Levitation" is a new potion effect (demonstrated in the Shulker projectile), can be mixed in potions
• Levitation only takes the player up; the only way to move downward is to drink milk, negating the potion's effect

Combat:

• Dual-wielding, and right-hand/left-hand main, at player's choice
• Can only have one "right-clickable" item in hand at any time, since right-click attempts to use the off-hand item
• Items in off-hand (ex. torches) can be placed normally with right-click
• Hotkey to swap main/off-hand items (F key by default); outside of combat, this is useful for lighting while mining, drinking potions while fighting/running, etc.
• Maps in the player's hand will provide a mini-map on screen
• Shields; roughly banner-sized (tower shield), can be customized like a banner with colors, logos, etc. Shields can be dual-wielded

New arrow types:

• Spectral Arrow (applies glow/outline effect (10-15 seconds) to whatever it hits); for team-based events, will outline the player in the team's color. Players with the invisible effect will still get the outline, but will otherwise be un-revealed, essentially being a walking outline of a character
• Arrows can have some potion effects applied to them, though balance is still a concern at the moment

Potions:

• Potion effects will have an on-screen icon, instead of requiring players to open their inventory to see what affects are applied
• Left-most icons are effects that are ending sooner. The further right the icon is, the longer the effect, relative to other icons displayed

Misc.

• Possibility to add more expensive, but more durable, boats in the future
• Snapshot coming soon, no date specified

Pocket Edition:

• Many PC-version features coming (XP bars, hunger, anvils)
• Controller support
• The Nether added; includes all PC-standard Nether features (mobs, items, etc)
• Many controls brought in line with console/PC, to accommodate controller support. Many new movement/jumping controls will be optional
• Redstone planned for the future
• The End planned, though not for the current update
• Realms coming to Pocket Edition in the future