i meant exactly what i said: it's a humble qualifier . "I think" functions as an admission of fallibility. it transforms a certain claim into a proposition subject to change. its purpose is rhetorical rather than formal.
Quoting the linked article: "I've thought for a long time that, for some types of apps, a Mac app would do as well as an iOS app." Isn't it pretty clear that when he's asserting that the relative downloads of NetNewsWire for iOS vs. macOS "confirms" that thought, he's (a) describing that as his thought, rather than trumpeting it as an immutable fact, and (b) both admitting that this is just one piece of data ("admittedly just one app") and confining even his hypothesis to "some types of apps"?
tl;dr: I get what you're saying, but I think you're giving too ungenerous a reading in this specific case.
tl;dr: I get what you're saying, but I think you're giving too ungenerous a reading in this specific case.