UPDATE: New builds of Leopard Client (9A527) and Server (9A528a) have reportedly [1] been seeded. Apple usually accelerates seeds before its system goes Final Candidate.

Apple's next major operating system update, Mac OS X Leopard, which is expected to ship in October, is nearing Final Candidate status, according to sources close to the development team.

Apple's development team is now heading towards the release of a Final Candidate build for late August or the first week of September, as originally planned in the internal Leopard development roadmap, which was revealed [2] by MacScoop in June.

The development of Leopard doesn't seem to face any major issues and the milestones are reached according to the planned schedule, sources told MacScoop.

A build, numbered "9A500n", focusing on overall stability, was recently seeded [3] to developers. The new build came a week after Apple asked for developer feedback on the previous build, numbered "9A499", which was seeded on late July.

The Final Candidate build will be followed by four to a maximum of six weeks of intensive testing before declaring Leopard as "Golden Master".

But... wait... weren't some folks already saying the same thing 149 days ago? Check this out [4] :).