I\'m interested to find out the technical details of how an iOS app installs on a device. Let me explain my situation,
I personally use iResign
to resign the ipa with the correct provisioning profile.
https://github.com/maciekish/iReSign
That saves me from keep changing the provisioning profiles in the xCode
project and build a new archive. The ipa can be resigned multiples times.
I would recommend before signing the file have a look at the provisioning profile by opening it in text editor and make sure the UDID for the device you are trying to install the app on is included in the file.
Once you have the ipa use Beta Builder
to generate the plist file along with a nice html file which can be uploaded to the ftp.
http://www.hanchorllc.com/2010/08/24/introducing-ios-beta-builder/
So all the user has to do now is visit a url on their phone to download an app.
You shouldn't have any issues with this method other than your internet connection dying.