A little earlier today, we got to look at what seems to be part of one of Nokia’s upcoming Windows Phone 8 handsets, teasing us as to the existence of a new phone with a 4.3-inch screen. Supposedly, some Nokia WP8 devices are already out in the wild, with the arrival of rumors that the company has been distributing them to some of the best Windows Phone developers around.

According to reports, Nokia has been providing this new hardware to developers identified as “VIPs”, based on their work towards releasing Windows Phone 7 apps. The reason we haven’t seen many leaks of these models is supposedly a result of the heavy security under which Microsoft and Nokia distributed the gear, discouraging devs from sharing any info on the unreleased hardware.

If this hardware that developers have been getting is based on earlier WP8 prototype models, as the rumor suggests, then maybe that’s what we saw in the pic from last week (above), with that wonky-looking Lumia.

Beyond that news of WP8 hardware, there’s also a new theory going around about some of the platform’s software:

In late July, the Windows Phone 8 SDK leaked out in advance of Microsoft’s official release. It now seems that the public availability of the SDK could be going down around September 7. WPCentral makes the convincing case that Microsoft is withholding the details on the Windows Phone sessions planed for TechEd Australia because that’s when it will first make the SDK available to its developer community. With those scheduled to take place on September 7, that could be when the software becomes available. All told, September is shaping-up to be quite the exciting month for Windows Phone fans.

Source: WPCentral, Neowin
Via: The Nokia Blog, Mobile Syrup