It was fully compatible with the Apple II. It, however, had new features:
- a new ROM holding the AppleSoft Basic (floating point version written by Microsoft),
- a new auto-start (stored in ROM) for easier start-up and screen editing,
- 48 KB RAM,
- text modes were the same as the Apple II, but the graphics modes were enhanced, they're the same as the Apple 2e : 16 colours at low resolution and 6 colours at high resolutions. In fact this 6-colour mode was also available on the Apple II since revision 1 of the motherboard.
The Apple II+ was sold in Europe as the Apple IIeuroplus which could display video in European PAL format, and had ESC sequences for European letters. It was followed by the Apple 2e.