I recently received an ipad app as a .ipa file.
To install the app, i renamed it to .zip and fished out the app file and using the Iphone Configuration Utility was
I checked the provisioning profiles from my Entreprise account:
<key>ProvisionsAllDevices</key>
<true/>
is present in all In House Distribution profiles. As far as I know, it's only available for Enterprise accounts:
Enrolled iOS Developers in the Enterprise program have the ability to distribute their in-house applications without the requirement of identifying individual devices or submitting the application to the App Store.
[...]
Please ensure to protect the distribution mechanism of this type of application as it can be installed on any Apple device if compromised.
(from the Developer Program User Guide — Enterprise Program)
I checked it myself and figure out that when you create an enterprise IPA - it for all devices, with:
<key>ProvisionsAllDevices</key>
and when it an ad Hoc, it only for limited devices:
<key>ProvisionedDevices</key>
<array>
<string>caf2b03e4a4e1a80d9492c8bdcea0ea8df6a14a7</string>
<string>1a5b7515ed0751d6de312f9520267f502b20eab0</string>
<string>f4c368bb6c27119feb877e0d95d3891166ab48c8</string>
<string>72234de7149e980a9e659e5417f764c47c5e7327</string>
</array>