For once, it was Samsung, not Apple, which was pleasantly surprising investors with better-than-expected smartphone performance. But the Korean firm knows that any upticks in its mobile business are likely to be fleeting and quickly squashed by fierce competition and declining growth – so its developer conference was heavily focused on the new devices which it hopes will offset that decline, mainly in the Internet of Things. In its first quarter results, Samsung credited the “early launch and successful sales” of its Galaxy S7 line with a rise in profits. The company had rushed its new flagship handset out earlier than usual to be well ahead of Apple’s new midrange iPhone and other major launches. It claimed “robust sell-out figures…