The iPad is expected to go on sale in New Zealand in July, but if you’re super keen, you could always pop over the Tasman, as Australia is getting its allotment on May 28.

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Britain are also selling iPads from May, and pre-ordering for those markets starts today.

More than one million Apple’s iPads, a 9.7-inch touchscreen primarily for games, internet, and digital media, have already been sold and they’re expecting to sell about four million more devices this year.

Apple Inc has competition on its hands: Google Inc.

Latest research shows that smartphones with Google’s Android operating system knocked the iPhone out of second place in the first quarter of this year, according to the NPD Group. Google now accounts for 28 per cent of US smartphone sales behind the Blackberry phone, which has a 36 per cent share of the market.

Smartphones allow users to surf the web, send email and run applications on wide, colour screens.

These hand-held devices have become the prime battleground for many technology companies seeking to ensure a good position in the evolving phone market.

Tandem has been featured in the latest idealog magazine

The article asks; Content is king – but who’s telling your story? Through case studies, the profile paints how important it is to have someone who knows what they are doing in regard to telling your story. Part of Tandem’s approach is creating content (ie. telling their ’story’) within a client’s budget which will connect and communicate with its market, be it through voice, video, music or online.

Read more by picking up the May/June issue of idealog.

It’s April in the twenty-tens already and we feel like we’re sitting atop a highly-tuned Harley rather than a tandem built for two!

We’ve changed our logo, our website, added a few staff, and really defined our direction for the next few years. As you know today’s media is all about content and that’s exactly what we do; using our experience and expertise we create content for the wide variety of media channels available in both traditional, new media and social media. Find out more at our new website www.tandemstudios.co.nz

New staff: Sean Davies is in the new Mac video editing suite. Kineta Knight is both Social Media Editor – providing strategy and content for client’s social media, website and other communications; and editor of the website we designed and run for the NZ Parliament www.inthehouse.co.nz.

Steve Lyons is on top of Sales, and Deb Stanaway our resident Producer. Jonny Pipe is Studio Manager and is busy developing our ‘music for games’ business (already we’ve made music for three games, with a 4th soon to begin)

Growth: as the new staff suggest, Tandem has seen a lot of growth in business over the last year, including television commercials, website builds, documentaries, and the creation of a world first ‘Parliament TV on demand’ website called www.inthehouse.co.nz for the Office of the Clerk

Voice Agency: still the biggest agency in the South Island by a country mile, and still attracting great new talent – like the legendary Michael Morrissey (Telecom and a few other ads over the years).

The Voice School: we’ve just had one and there’ll be another in a couple of months. We have professionals teaching the skills and business of voiceovers – the only course of it’s kind in the country! Classes are small and the whole weekend’s a blast!

Check out our blog which is updated on a daily basis, and please note the new email address – ‘firstname’@tandemstudios.co.nz

Le Race is one of New Zealand’s leading annual hill-climb cycling events – racing 100km from the centre of Christchurch, over the Port Hills to Akaroa.

Tandem Studios’ Dave Dunlay was this year’s MC for Le Race. Here is a video he shot over the course of the day – 20 March, 2010:

Social networking site, hi5, has remodeled itself to cater for the gaming industry.

The site was revamped just recently, placing a stronger  focus on games and virtual currency.

hi5 has now furthered its strategy to enter into the gaming market with its acquisition with Big Six, a social gaming developer.

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The use of social networking sites has increased from three hours per month to five-and-a-half hours per month in the last year alone, according to new research.

An article by CNN Money says this represents “a staggering 82 per cent increase in the use of social media”.

The report, published on NielsenWire, also says that people spend the most internet time overall on social network sites and blogs, and social websites, such as Facebook, are now the most common homepages for users.

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