Initially thought to be Facebook supporting HTML5, allowing Facebook videos to be played on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, has turned out not to be the case. ReadWriteWeb now understands that Facebook detects when a user arrives at the website via Safari on the iPad.
Instead of then playing the video within the page (which would have indicated HTML5 implementation) the video is linked out and plays full-screen within the browser. The video which is being played is in the MP4 format which is supported by Apple devices.
ReadWriteWeb confirmed this after uploading a WMV file to Facebook and it was played back as an MP4 file when viewed on an iPad. It was also noted this has only just begun to be implemented so not all videos being uploaded at the moment are being converted to the MP4 format.
The article only referred to the videos working on Facebook on the iPad within the Safari browser. Facebook is yet to comment on the changes or whether a full roll out of HTML5 is to be expected.