If you’re a developer of software for Mac OS X or iOS, the event you probably want to go to is Apple’s WWDC in San Francisco. That is, if you can get a ticket.

Turns out tickets went on sale today and sold out in minutes. That’s great for Apple and those who managed to complete their purchases without errors, but what about the rest of the Apple developer community that’s been left out in the cold?

Fortunately, there’s an alternative. It’s called AltWWDC, is organized by the folks behind Appsterdam, runs June 10-14 and best of all, it’s free.

Some of the folks expected to speak at the event include Mike Lee, Saul Mora, Steve “Scotty” Scott and a couple of my old TUAW colleagues, Brett Terpstra and Victor Agreda, Jr. The event takes place at the downtown campus of San Francisco State University, which is only a block from Moscone Center where Apple’s WWDC is held.

As fans of Apple and its products, we love things like this. Sure, these kinds of results should be taken with a grain (or three) of salt, but still, it’s kinda cool to see and makes us love Apple stuff even more.

What are we talking about? Well, this week ZDNet reports that based on a new study from Soluto, which uses “data from its massive online database of PC crashes, hangs, and performance metrics to identify the 10 most reliable Windows PCs you can buy today”, the most reliable Windows PC in the world is a 13″ Retina MacBook Pro running Windows via Boot Camp.

How abou that? According to the study, the MacBook Pro is “at the top of the list” with other hardware like the Acer Aspire E1-571, the Dell XPS 13, the Dell Vostro 3560, the Acer Aspire V3-771 and Apple’s 15-inch Retina-equipped MacBook Pro taking the next spots.

What about other vendors like Toshiba, Lenovo or market leader HP? Yeah, they don’t even crack the top ten. Sad, but true.

So, if you need to run Windows and are looking for the best, most reliable hardware out there to run it on, guess you should get a Mac. We’re not really surprised. We could have told you that.

One thing you can say about Apple, they seem to provide a rather steady stream of updates to their various operating systems. Today’s example is an update to OS X Mountain Lion, which brings the software to version 10.8.3.

It features a good amount of fixes, improvements, etc. including:

• The ability to redeem iTunes gift cards in the Mac App Store using the built-in camera on a Mac

• Boot Camp support for installing Windows 8 and Macs with a 3 TB hard drive

• Various fixes for issues that cause a URL to quit apps unexpectedly, that might cause Logic Pro to become unresponsive and stuttering audio on 2011 iMacs.

The update also includes Safari 6.0.3, which is nice. Although, I still prefer Chrome. But that’s a topic for another day.

The update is available via Software Update or through the Mac App Store. Here’s the full list of fixes and improvements.

Two things in life we like: faster processors and lower prices. Today, Apple has given us both along it’s Retina MacBook Pro line.

That’s right, with today’s announcement, the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro now starts at $1,499 with 128GB of storage and $1,699 for the 256GB model with a new 2.6 GHz processor. The entry-level 15-inch model now includes a faster 2.4 GHz quad-core processor and the high-end model now has a 2.7 GHz quad-core processor and 16GB of RAM.

In addition, the company also cut the base price of the MacBook Air with a 256GB SSD to $1,399. Apple’s full press release is after the break.

Now that the hype over Comic-Con is ending we can turn our attentions to other things we also love as much as movies, TV and comics: gadgets and tech. This time around, for you Mac users in the audience, we’re getting word from various sources that the next version of Apple’s OS X (aka Mountain Lion) is going to launch as soon as July 25.

On of the main sources for the this news are the folks over at 9 to 5 Mac who’ve heard that Apple Stores both in the United States and overseas are planning overnights for Tuesday, July 24th. They speculate that with Apple promising Mountain Lion “in July”, it makes sense that said overnights would lead to a launch of the OS on the following day.

We think this is pretty sound speculation too and follows many of Apple’s previously established release patterns for these types of updates. Plus, the Gold Master of Mountain Lion has already been released to developers (we’re running it on some of our Macs in fact), so that means the software is ready to go.

Mountain Lion is a great upgrade and offers a bunch of new features sure to please long time Mac users as well as newcomers. We hope Apple decides to let it into the wild soon.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be a $19.99 upgrade for all users. For more on Mountain Lion, check out Apple’s website.