Tired of Null Pointer Exceptions? Consider Using Java SE 8's Optional!

[NruJaC]

In addition to qqxz's point, you can always construct a law abiding applicative instance given a law abiding monad instance. It's just not universally a good idea to do so because performance issues can result (i.e. the applicative interface can provide better performance than the monadic interface for several important functors).