Wow. This doesn’t happen every day. We’ve known that iPhones are field-tested by individuals in everyday settings for months before they get announced, but we’ve never seen one “fall into the wrong hands” before. Apple is usually very careful about leaking any information before Jobs can unveil it onstage, and usually “leaked” photos–even legit ones–are fuzzy and fleeting.

However, unless Apple or someone else is pulling the most elaborate gag ever, or unless the object in question is a failed prototype of some sort, then we are seeing Apple’s next iPhone model very up-close and personal. Someone apparently left it behind at a bar in Redwood City, and it quickly made its way into the hands of the people at Gizmodo, who are showing it to the world. While the owner apparently wiped it remotely, they have not yet demanded it back. Asked, maybe. That’s the weird thing: when it comes to unreleased products, even with just images or hints of information, Apple legal usually sends sternly worded letters demanding that posts and photos be taken down. Well, Gizmodo has their hands on actual property which doesn’t belong to them, and Apple is supposedly just letting them keep it. (They claim that Apple is “very interested” in getting it back, but I would describe “very interested” as “making serious legal threats,” not just “reporting it missing.”) Which raises a lot of interesting questions, the least of which is, is this the real thing?

Gizmodo is convinced that it is. They have photographed it from every angle and have dissected it and put it back together, and they believe it’s the genuine article. Check out the link; they go into depth about it. The big news: a high-res display (unknown resolution, pixels so small they could not discern them clearly); a front-facing camera for video conferencing; a larger camera on the back, with LED flash; a bigger battery; and a new, flat and hard-edged form.