With the Thursday release of the Kindle for Mac application, online retailer Amazon has further expanded the number of devices on which e-books bought from the company can be read – already, it is offering its digital book reading software for the Apple iPhone and iPod, the RIM Blackberry, and a Windows PC, over and above the Kindle itself.

Furthermore, Amazon is also planning to release a version of the Kindle app for the Apple iPad tablet computer on April 3, the date on which the device is scheduled to hit the market.

The newly-released Kindle for Mac app, which is free from Amazon, allows users to purchase, read, and organize e-books bought from Amazon via its Kindle Store – which presently offers over 450,000 books, including 102 out of the New York Times’ 111 bestsellers.

Similar to the PC version, the Kindle for Mac app is essentially a ‘basics’ reader, which automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read with other devices approved for the same user account – an advantage that results from Amazon’s storing of copies of books bought on its servers without any additional charge.

However, though the Kindle for Mac app presently does not allow users to create and edit notes and highlights, Amazon intends bringing on this ability in the near future, when it will also add the full-text search functionality.