Everything You Need To Know About Apple’s Purchase of FoundationDB

and databases

It was announced sometime on Twitter this week that Apple bought a large collection of databases called FoundationDB — DB stands for database; it’s one word but still abbreviated to two letters.

What is a database?

Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines database as “a collection of pieces of information that is organized and used on a computer.” It is a noun pronounced da·ta·base, ie. ˈdā-tə-ˌbās.

An example of a sentence using the word database is “All of our customers’ information was kept in a database.”

What does this all mean?

If you have ever been a “customer” then all of your “information” is in a database somewhere and now Apple owns it.

Is this bad for customers?

To understand the gravity of this situation, consider this: according to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, some words and phrases that rhyme with database include: about-face, aerospace, anyplace, boniface, bouillabaisse, carapace, catalase, cellulase, commonplace, contrabass, cyberspace, diabase, diastase, double-space, elastase, everyplace, hydrolase, hydrospace, hyperspace, interface, interlace, interspace, invertase, kilobase, lemures, lowercase, marketplace, oxidase, pillowcase, reductase, Samothrace, single-space, steeplechase, thoroughbass, thoroughbrace, triple-space, uppercase.

Now, outer space is a topic of research that many customers are into. Many of us grew up wanting to be astronauts. Apple has the same thing in mind and it’s not news.

Spooky: default iOS wallpaper used to be a photograph of our planet, “Earth,” from outer space

The fact that Apple was acquiring engineers that would typically work on space research and are now buying things that rhyme with space —eg. database — this can only mean one thing:

1. Apple, or someone who works at Apple, is also interested in outer space.
2. Apple has information about outer space that they need to put in databases and hide from us.
3. Apple is using outer space as a front for ulterior motives

But back to the databases that Apple bought. Now no one can download them according to people tweeting about FoundationDB. Where are they?

According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the previous word in the dictionary is “data bank.” Most likely all of FoundationDB will be stored in a data bank for future use by Apple. Since it is no longer our information but theirs — and, strangely enough, Radio Shack’s— we will have to come up with all new information and hope that no one sells it.

Jenn Schiffer is a professional writer and researcher with a lot of information who puts a lot of time into her craft.