* Sales of the iPhone were down 17% from the same period of 2018 but Wall Street seems to believe that there's nowhere for the iPhone to go but up, sending Apple's stock soaring. However, there is bad news for the entire smartphone industry. Analyst firm IDC says smartphone shipments for the first quarter of this year were down 6.6% from the same period of 2018, the same week that Google CEO Sundar Pichai said it's harder than it used to be to sell pricey, high-end phones. Samsung, too, reported earnings this week, and said that it expected competition in the ‘mature’ smartphone industry to put more pressure on its business in the second half of the year.