Well, this is curious: It appears Apple has quietly started to enlist users to test OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2, a second patch for the company's latest Mac operating system seeded before the first patch is even available to the public.

MacRumors is reporting that Apple has started enlisting select users to begin testing OS X 10.8.2, a second patch for OS X Mountain Lion.

"Join us for 10.8.2!" the invitation reads. "You are invited to participate in the next Mountain Lion Software Update seed project, 10.8.2. Apple will provide you with the pre-release software. Once builds are available, we ask that you install and test each build to help us make sure that this is a high quality release!"

While it's not that uncommon for Apple to provide early builds to a select group of users as well as developers, the timing is rather strange considering OS X 10.8.1 has yet to be released to the public.

Developers, of course, have already been hammering away on not one but two beta builds of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.1, and the fact that Apple is moving forward to the next point update could signal that the first patch is imminent.

There have already been reports that OS X 10.8.1 resolves early complaints about reduced battery time on MacBook computers, and the update is likely to have plenty of other tweaks in store when it starts pushing to Macs everywhere soon.

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