UPDATE: Mac OS X 10.5.3 is now available [1], it weights 420MB

Apple has seeded several builds of its Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 update to developers during the past few weeks and just seeded yet another one numbered "9D34" earlier today.

As mentioned on the seednote of the latest (9D34) build, testing now focuses on Audio and Video Applications, 802.1X, Active Directory/Directory Services, AirPort, Back To My Mac, Graphics, Installer, Mail, Spaces and Time Machine

It also appears that the build has seen some kernel tweaks so as to increase performance.

More than 200 bugs covering all areas have been fixed on Leopard since Apple started seeding builds of the 10.5.3 update so we may expect a snappy and stable system to come out. This iteration of Mac OS X is known for having introduced several issues with file sharing, let's hope that Apple's development team has finally worked them out.

Like it was the case for 10.5.2 update builds, the latest 10.5.3 build weights almost half a gigabyte but developer builds are sometimes a bit larger than the final release.

We shouldn't have to wait too long before this update appears on our Software Update utility as it has no known issues listed, which is generally a sign that the update is in final testing.