Apple announces improvements to Notifications for Mac with quick reply, iOS push notifications, and more

Today at Apple’s WWDC keynote, Apple took some time to announce some improvements to Notifications, as we expected. The majority of the improvements that Apple has demoed so far include new features for Notifications on the Mac coming in the just announced OS X Mavericks, such as quick replies, the ability to receive iOS push notifications, and lock screen access.

Apple showed off a new quick reply feature for Notifications on the Mac that will allow users to mouse over a notification and quickly reply from a dialog that pops depending on the app. Not only can you reply to messages to respond to FaceTime calls, for example, you will also be able to perform other actions with the quick reply Notifications such as quickly deleting emails.

Another feature that we saw today during Apple’s keynote is the ability to receive iOS push notifications right on your Mac for apps installed on your iPhone and iPad. These are a few of the updates we were expecting from Apple today, but we’ll have to wait to see if they fixed the other half of the problem during its iOS 7 portion of today’s presentation but Apple also showed off a redesigned Notification center for iOS including lock screen access and new tabs (pictured below).

Additionally, Apple showed off the ability to view Notifications directly from the lock screen in OS X Mavericks.

Update:  As we expected, Apple also announced that Notification Sync will be coming in iOS 7, but didn’t show off any specifics.