Quick reply came to Android in the first Android N dev preview, allowing users to reply to notifications from the notification shade. Although not many apps support quick reply as of yet, Google has expanded the feature to the lock screen.

The notification will come in and arrive on the lock screen. It will not be expanded by default, so pull down on it slightly to expand, revealing 'Reply,' which will automatically draw down the notification shade, at which point 'Reply' can be tapped on and a message typed in.

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GIF of lock screen quick reply.

The lock screen controls in N dev preview 2.

Now for the caveat: this doesn't work if 'Hide sensitive notification content' is selected for the lock screen. If 'Show all notification content' is picked instead, the option 'If device is locked, prevent typing replies or other text in notifications' will need to be ticked, which is off by default.

Nevertheless, it's a pretty cool feature, and great to see Google iterating on and improving N before the final release.

Thanks: Chuck Finely