Reliable sources claim that Apple is preparing the first Snow Leopard pre-release builds to be seeded to developers. These copies are the first to be handed to a “limited” / select number of developers since the initial build issued at Apple's WWDC in June, this year.

AppleInsider cites people familiar with the company's plans saying that pre-release copies of Snow Leopard will be handed to an “extremely limited” number of developers. Thus, few members of the vast Apple Developer Connection network are likely to receive their own copy of Mac OS X 10.6, “at least during the initial phase,” reads the report.

As revealed by Apple during its annual developers conference back in June, Snow Leopard is moving away from new features, to leave room for a focus on performance and stability. Apple believes it has done wonderfully with all the features in its OS, and now feels the emphasis should be on optimizing computing resources.

The company itself has revealed in a press release that Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named "Grand Central." Developers are supposed to take advantage of this feature to create programs that squeeze every drop of power from multi-core Macs.

Moreover, Snow Leopard extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL). This enables any application to tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power (previously available only to graphics applications). The C-based technology has been proposed as an open standard, as it raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM. OS X Leopard's focus is, of course, on 64-bit technology. Additionally, with the release of Snow Leopard, Apple will introduce a new version of QuickTime, optimized for modern audio and video formats.

Some also believe there's some exciting new stuff to be had in Apple's upcoming maintenance and security update to the current version of Leopard (10.5.5). Mac OS X 10.5.6 is widely expected to introduce Blu-ray support, an aspect tied to rumors of upcoming next-gen MacBooks and MacBook Pros.