Microsoft, over a month ago, made its big Windows Phone 8 announcement. Developers, who have wanted to start crafting apps for the new platform, have so far been out of luck. But all that is about to change because the Windows Phone 8 SDK Release Preview has leaked out early, coming through Microsoft’s own servers.
Microsoft, anyway, was expected to release the WP8 SDK at some point, officially. But now it looks like someone decided that it has been enough of waiting, and made some files more accessible than they should have been.
The SDK has arrived at a whooping size of 1.35 GB, and requires Windows 8 Release Preview to be installed in order to function. As per the release notes, the SDK is labeled for “Windows Phone SDK 8.0 (LKG25)” with Windows Phone 8 OS version 8511.9744.20120716-1509, with a release date of July 19, 2012. This makes the build quite recent. The SDK is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, and the release notes also indicates that the SDK requires 4 GB of free disk space, 8 GB of RAM (recommended) and 64-bit (x64) motherboard.
As far as the Windows Phone Emulator is concerned, you will require Second Level Address Translation (SLAT). The leaked documents also include files informing developers how to track network usage with WP8 apps, as well as tips for maximizing battery life under the new OS.
Microsoft is yet to comment on this leak. Stay tuned for more updates.
