Some fascinating stuff.

Start with Recode’s take on the Qualcomm/Apple tiff: Lawsuits need to be hammered out, but both sides want to continue the relationship.

Apple hit Qualcomm with a $1 billion lawsuit on Friday, saying the chipmaker had improperly withheld rebates in retaliation for Apple’s complaints to regulatory authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere. Apple’s suit followed a separate antitrust complaint earlier in the week from the Federal Trade Commission.

For its part, Qualcomm says Apple is trying to turn a simple contract dispute into a regulatory issue.

Sources close to Qualcomm say the company is considering filing its own lawsuits in response, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, as well as trying to get Apple’s case dismissed.

One thing Qualcomm doesn’t plan to do, though, is to stop supplying modem chips to the iPhone maker.

Now switch over to Bloomberg’s take:

Apple Inc. is piling onto lawsuits that attack the way Qualcomm Inc. licenses technology for mobile phones in a widespread effort to rake back profits in a slowing market.

The latest suit by Apple, filed Friday, alleges that Qualcomm has unfairly used the power of its patents, which cover the fundamentals of phone systems, and its chip business to prop up its dominant position in the industry. Apple’s legal actions follow regulatory investigations and fines on three continents, including a lawsuit announced last week by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

“It feels like another coordinated attack on Qualcomm,” said Mike Walkley, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity. The mobile phone business is “a mature industry, they’ve got to get their margins higher.”

At the core of all this is Qualcomm’s incredibly strong position at the center of mobile:

Underpinning the government actions is a drive to shake loose Qualcomm’s grip on the smartphone business. In its last five fiscal years, Qualcomm has turned $37 billion of licensing revenue into $32 billion of pretax profit. Its gross margin, or the percentage of revenue remaining after deducting the cost of production, is 61 percent and is predicted by analysts to widen.

Those numbers are simply incredible. Not a fan of the term margin grab, but the Bloomberg points are well made. Better margins are certainly at the heart of this rift.