Development phase

A development phase is a set of updates to put the updates into categories. There are 11 development phases in normal Minecraft, and 3 in Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

List (Minecraft)
Pre-classic (not originally released to the public) (May 14 - 16 2009)

Classic (May 16 - 28 2009)

Multiplayer Test (June 1 - July 11 2009)

Survival Test (August 4 - December 22 2009)

Indev (December 2009 - February 23 2010)

Infdev (February - June 27 2010)

Alpha (June 30 - December 3 2010)

Beta (December 20 2010 - November 11 2011)

Post-beta (November 13 2011 - Present)

List (Pocket Edition)
Pre-release (Unknown date)

Alpha (August 16, 2011 - December 11 2016)

Post-alpha (December 19 2016 - Present)