Change app Version with only IPA file provided (no xcode)

Question

I have an app that was developed for my company. Unfortunately it needs to be resigned (i know how do this part) because the distribution cert has expired. The problem is we need to change the version number so it allows for an update on all iPads. Does anyone know how to do this using terminal (i have xcode installed but i dont have and of the files from the developers). Once again, i only have the IPA file for the app.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

• Rename the .ipa to .zip, and unzip the archive.
• Inside should be a folder called "payload", and inside that folder should be your application archive.
• Right-click the application archive, and choose "show package contents."
• Find the Info.plist file (either named "Info.plist" or "AppName_Info.plist"). Open that file with a text editor
• Change the value of "CFBundleVersion" and "CFBundleShortVersionString" to your desired version number.
• Re-zip the archive
• Rename the .zip to .ipa
• Re-sign the .ipa

Answer 2

In answer to Chris Emerson's comment above (sorry, I don't have enough reputation to add another comment so I'm adding an answer) it is still possible to do this! I have just done it for an IPA with latest updates to everything iOS 8.3, OX Mavericks. I was getting the same message "... could not be installed at this time" and it turned out to be an issue with the entitlements in the provisioning profile not matching the entitlements in the *.app.

You can check the entitlements in both like this: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2318/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40013777-CH1-TNTAG68, and I put an answer detailing how I fixed the entitlements of my IPA so that they matched here: Alter Minimum OS Version of IPA without XCode, iOS 8+.