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.

With Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference set for next week, anticipation is building as to what the company will announce during its keynote presentation on Monday. We, of course, have our suspicions. . . and don’t mind sharing them.

Here’s what we think will happen:

• iOS 6 — This is pretty much a no-brainer. It’s a developer conference, after all, so an announcement of new software to power the next generation of iPhone and iPad is to be expected. In addition to new notifications and tighter integration with Facebook and Twitter, we’ve got our fingers crossed for Android-like widgets — but that’s probably a longshot. Also expect mention and demos of Mac OS X Mountain Lion too.

• New MacBook Pros — The current lineup of MacBook Pro computers is in dire need of a refresh. What better place to announce thinner, faster pro laptops than at WWDC?

• Apple TV — This is a bit more of a longshot. However, we think Apple wants to get into your living room in a big way, so look for an Apple-branded TV or more powerful/amazing Apple TV black box to be unveiled. We don’t necessarily believe Apple will go all the way and offer an actual TV, but stranger things have happened.

With all the advancements in technology coming along the last few years, especially from Apple, whenever the company has an event of any kind. it’s big news. Following that is the announcement today that Apple has officially confirmed the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote will be held at 10:00AM on June 11th at Moscone West in San Francisco.

The news of a keynote for this Apple Developer event isn’t very surprising considering they have one every year. What is somewhat surprising, however, is that the company has not confirmed who will be delivering said keynote.

In the past, Apple Co-Founder and CEO Steve Jobs did the honors. Since his passing, new CEO Tim Cook has taken over. This time around, though, with no confirmation forthcoming, it’s anyone’s guess.

Of course, it could just be that Apple hasn’t announced the keyote speaker yet because they are still working out the details. Or, and this is a scenario I prefer to believe, they are working on something really amazing for the event.

My vote for what this amazing thing could be: Hologram Steve Jobs.

Late yesterday Apple released an update to its desktop operating system. This update, dubbed OS X Lion 10.7.4, features several minor bug fixes as well as a security update addressing the FileVault password security issue. This issue made users’ passwords vulnerable by storing them in plain text format. Here’s what the update addresses in Applespeak:

The 10.7.4 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

As always, we recommend you download and install via the combo updater instead of using Apple’s Software Update built into the Lion OS. Sure, it takes a bit longer and is a bit more effort, but in our experience, it usually yields better results.

Say what you will about the Angry Birds franchise of games and its relative merits, it looks like it’s here to stay. How do we know?

Well, the company that produces the series of games, Rovio, announced on Monday that the company’s latest Angry Birds installment, Angry Birds Space, has been downloaded 50 Million times in just 35 days, making it the fastest growing mobile game of all time. In the same announcement the company also hinted that “something even bigger is on its way.” What that is, we can’t imagine. The Pigs strike back perhaps? We’ll see.

If you haven’t had a chance to play Angry Birds Space yet, you should. It was released on March 22 for iOS, Android, Mac OS X and Windows so you should have no trouble finding a platform to enjoy it on. Besides, it’s quite fun to play.

In fact, we would go so far to say it’s probably the most fun of the Angry Birds franchise since the original. For more on the game, check out the video after the break.

Add me to the list of people a bit perturbed about not being able to get a ticket for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June. Sure, I could have been more diligent or woken up super early to make sure I got a ticket. However, with tickets selling out in under two hours, it might not have made a difference anyway.

Plus, Apple could have also taken its West Coast developers into a bit more consideration when deciding the release schedule for tickets too. After all, Apple is a West Coast company, so that should count for something. Amiright? Maybe not.

Anyway, for those of you in the same boat who did not manage to get a ticket for WWDC, an alternative has presented itself. No, Apple hasn’t released more tickets for its event. Instead, some enterprising developers in San Francisco, who’ve dubbed their organization Indie Developer Labs, have decided to put on an iOS developer conference of their own.

“Indie Developer Labs is an open area where developers are provided with space to work, free Wi-Fi, and an open environment to connect with other developers. Our mission is to help foster the collaborative spirit of the Apple developer community,” the organizers said on their website.

The event will take place from June 12th to June 15th in San Francisco, during the same time and just blocks away from where Apple’s event will be held at the Moscone Center. We wish them well.

Developing apps for the iPhone, iPad and other iOS devices is a booming business. There’s also money to be made developing apps for the Mac and Mac OS X as well.

There’s so much to gain, and Apple wants to keep developers as happy as they can, that the company holds an annual developer’s conference in San Francisco to make sure everyone is on the same page and to help developers get all the tools they need to create great apps. In fact, the company just announced that its Worldwide Developer Conference will take place in San Francisco from June 11th to June 15th.

For the event, Apple is providing over 100 sessions on iOS and OS X, in addition to a student scholarship program. If you’re a first-time developer of apps for the iPhone or a seasoned veteran, this even surely offers a great deal of useful information and contact building.

Read on for all the details from Apple’s official press release.

In what seems like a response to two websites claiming a virus “outbreak” on Mac computers which exploits a Java vulnerability, Apple today issued a new software update for Macs running Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. The update, which is called Java for OS X 2012-002, supposedly addresses this vulnerability, although Apple doesn’t say that in the info released with the update.

In fact, in true Apple fashion, the update only says it delivers “improved compatibility, security and reliability” and little else. Although, as this update comes cloesly after Russian anti-virus experts Dr. Web revealed earlier this week news of the “Flashback” trojan virus and its supposed infection of over 600,000 Macs worldwide, Apple’s timing of the update is a bit convenient if it isn’t targeted directly at this exploit.

According to the Dr. Web report, the trojan can intercept sensitive information such as passwords and transmit them to somewhere else. It also claims 57 percent of the infected Macs are located in the US and 20 percent are in Canada. There’s even some on Apple’s Cupertino campus which, if true, is pretty amusing.

Regardless of wether you think viruses exist for the Mac or not or think this is all a big hoax, there’s no reason not to update your Macs. It’s a simple process through Software Update. Why take a chance?