Unless you are familiar with the Android enthusiast community, you could be forgiven for not knowing what Lawnchair is. It is a third-party custom launcher that mimics the minimalist Pixel launcher, but with a few tweaks and added features. It is positioned among many other launchers, notably Nova and Action Launchers.

However, Lawnchair likes to go dark for a period of time and has returned completely rebuilt for Android 11. It's in alpha right now, so be cautious when installing it, especially if you're trying to sideload the app onto a device running a version of Android prior to 11.

While not our favorite launcher, many people like Lawnchair because it offers a Pixel-like experience. It is much simpler than, for example, Nova (which has every option you could want in a launcher). Now, with a new development team at the helm, they are struggling to bring Lawnchair up to date with the modern era. After all, Android 12 is not that far off.

Note that the alpha version is for Android 11 only. Attempting to sideload it onto a device with an earlier version will likely result in a crash. I have not tested it on my device, but others have reported that. The new team promises that support for Android 10 and earlier is coming, but not at this time.

Old staples like Lawnfeed (Google Discover) and the At a Glance widget are still here, and the development team promises new features like background blurring and individual shortcut customization. Again, the point of Lawnchair is to be as faithful as possible to Google's launcher; not a complete overhaul like Nova or Niagara, but better than something like Samsung's One UI launcher.

For now, you'll have to sideload the alpha version, which is a fairly easy process; Lawnchair 11 will eventually appear in the Play Store, probably under a new ID, so if you can be patient, you can wait until then. For now, you can get the apk file from APK Mirror, a trusted site that hosts many app files.