UPDATE: New builds of Leopard Client (9A527) and Server (9A528a) have reportedly 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 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 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 :).