Archiving IPAs exists in a legal grey area. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar international laws, circumventing the FairPlay DRM to archive or resign an app is often considered a violation. However, the Software Preservation Network and various academic institutions argue for exemptions to allow the preservation of software that is no longer commercially available. The iOS 7 IPA archive exists largely in the underground "abandonware" scene, thriving on forums and repositories that operate outside the official App Store ecosystem.

Apple does not provide a method to download older versions of apps once an update is released. If a user updates an app to the iOS 8 version, the iOS 7 version is effectively lost unless it was previously archived. This "always forward, never backward" philosophy of the App Store places the burden of preservation entirely on the user community, leading to decentralized and often incomplete archives.

If an app uses enterprise distribution or ad-hoc signing, the provisioning profile expires. You must manually resign the IPA using ldid or iOS App Signer.