Reverse Engineering?

Question

I have *.ipa file which is the iphone application.

• Is that possible to use reverse engineering in that ipa and extract code..?

Answer 1

Well, its not really a hacking but it can surely help you identify some parts of the UI... Do the following:

1- Create a new project on the Xcode (doesn't really mater what you choose)

2- Connect your device to your computer

3- Profile your project on your device.

4- On the Profile, pick Core Animation

5- On the options choose Color Blended Layers It will look like this:

6- Unplug your device while the profile is running. Your phone will look like this now:

7- Go to the app you want to check.

Although you can't see any code, this can help you out to identify key parts of the application. To get back to normal, you can restart your device, or just go to the profile and run it Again, and uncheck the Color Blended Layers option.

Answer 2

As stated here: How to use Xcode to open decrypted IPA contents ipa is only a "zipped" version of the executable.

So if you are able to extract, its mostly an issue of dissasemble the executable (assembly code/dissasemblers).

But somehow this smells like fish.

Answer 3

Not possible the way you intend it! .ipa files contain the resources(images,sound files, database files,etc) and compiled classes only. The code is contained in these compiled classes as binaries and thus, you can at the most see how the app was structured into classes and how the resources were used but can not get the actual code as written by the developers. You can refer this SO question to get a brief idea as to how that can be done.