An IPA is just a renamed .zip . You can create one by placing a .app folder into a folder named Payload , zipping it, and renaming the extension to .ipa .
: A comprehensive tool for macOS and Linux (recommended over Windows) used to jailbreak and manage legacy devices. iTunes (Legacy Versions)
Developers building emulators like touchHLE (high-level emulator for old iOS apps) rely on real IPA files to reverse-engineer APIs and test compatibility.
An IPA is essentially a ZIP archive containing: