The City College of New York is investigating its use of former Apple exec Scott Forstall’s photo in advertisements for the school’s student ID card.
Cult of Mac contacted the college Wednesday afternoon about Forstall’s strange appearance on the promotional materials. “I’m not commenting,” said Ellis Simon, City College’s public relations director, who added that he was aware of the situation but needed time to “get all the facts straight” before talking about the apparent mixup.
Forstall’s bizarre resurfacing comes a little over a year after he was so publicly pushed out of Apple. Since his 2012 purge, Forstall has been flying completely under the radar. Besides some international travel, zero has been reported about what Apple’s former senior vice president of iOS has been doing.
His new “career” as a model came to light Wednesday after a photo was posted on Twitter showing the ex-Apple SVP’s smiling mug on a mockup of City College’s CityOneCard, with Forstall identified as “Jonathan A. Anderson.”
Just learned what Scott Forstall is doing post-Apple: taking classes at CCNY. pic.twitter.com/jfvAaZZySm
— Don Lehman (@Afterschool) January 15, 2014
The banner was spotted outside a sandwich shop near the college’s campus in New York City. There are multiple instances of Forstall’s pic being used by City College online as well.
If Forstall’s picture in the bogus ID card looks familiar, it’s because that’s an old headshot from his days at Apple — a relic from a job he probably wants to forget.
The whole incident is very strange, since Forstall has no apparent connections to City College. Was this just a placeholder image inadvertently left in the final advertisements, or an inside joke by a designer who worked on the City College campaign?
At this point, the answer remains unclear.