After making Hangouts users wait for months, Google has finally started rolling out v7 of the app that adds quick reply feature to the app. For what its worth, Google had added quick reply feature to the iOS version of Hangouts in December last year. 

With quick reply, you can quickly reply to a new conversation right from the notification shade and without opening the full app.

In addition to quick reply, the update also adds the ‘Save to home screen’ option that allows one to create direct shortcut to a particular conversation or group chat on your home screen. Other minor changes include a redesigned share menu that no longer looks like it is from the KitKat era, checkboxes now acting as toggles and more.

The update is being rolled out in stages, but you can always grab the APK from here and manually sideload it.

While it is great to see that Google has finally added quick reply support to Hangouts, the app still does not support the Direct Share feature in Marshmallow.