How do I respond to a specific message in a group text on iPhone?

iOS 14 comes with two major enhancements to Messages - the ability to pin message threads and the ability to respond directly to messages within group texts. The latter is really useful so your responses that are hours and potentially hundreds of texts later don't seem like they are coming out of left field. To do it, just long press the message you want to respond to and select "Reply."

Type your response then tap anywhere on the screen to return to the full view and you will see your response with a line going to a smaller grayed out version of the text you responded to.