Starting with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, and of course, in later versions, Apple has introduced the ability to reply directly to a specific message and use mentions to draw recipients’ attention to certain messages when chatting in groups. Here’s how to best use these two functions.
Use mentions
When chatting in a window with multiple people, messages may slip away. And then, to be sure that one of the participants reads a particular message carefully, it is enough to use the mentions.
To mention a recipient, simply open a conversation in Messages and type a contact’s name, tap it when it appears in the pop up, and then write the message you want to send. Alternatively, you can type “@” followed by the name of the desired contact.
In this way, by default, the mentioned contact will be notified with a notification of the mention, so that he will certainly not lose the received message. It is also possible that the recipient has turned off notifications of the conversation. To change this notification setting, simply go to Settings> Messages, then turn the Notify me function on or off.
Reply to a specific message on iMessage
Through iMessage, you can also reply to a specific message. To do this, simply open a conversation in Messages. From here, tap and hold the balloon of a message you want to reply to, then tap the Reply button.
At this point, you can write the reply text, and finally, you can send it by clicking the appropriate “Send” button. It is possible to reply to a specific SMS in both individual and group conversations.
