Not many; the iPad Pro + Apple Pencil Pro is considered by many to be the best-in-class drawing tablet. And the Surface Pro frankly sucks for digital illustration — it's far less responsive, with far less control. The next-best option after an iPad Pro is a Wacom pad plugged into a PC.
Also, there's no point in using Photoshop for drawing on a tablet. (It's not impossible to use it for that, but it's not what I'd call a good experience.) You really want domain-specific digital-illustration software that puts the artist in direct control of brushes, color-mixing, and layers (either by direct-manipulation gestures, or in floating palettes, ring menus, etc); and then gets everything else out of the way (or doesn't include it at all.) You use such software to draw the things you want, as separate layer-groups or images — and then, when you're done, you throw those drawings into an app like Photoshop to clean them up, put them together, and otherwise transform your "drawings" into "artwork."
If you're familiar with audio production: think of Photoshop as a DAW, and illustration as a performance. Even a solo musician doesn't touch their DAW while they're playing an instrument; the only thing they're touching is their instrument. Digital-illustration software is an instrument.
FWIW, I have both a Wacom and a Surface Pro on-hand right now. The Wacom tablet is great (unbeaten latency-wise) but the Surface Pro has an equally nice digitizer and a perfectly usable screen. I took notes on it for a few years before moving to markdown and typing everything.
The point I'm trying to make is that this artificial product category distinction people want to illustrate doesn't exist. Both of these hardware platforms can do both tasks equally well; all Apple has to do is provide both and let their customers decide for themselves. As time goes on, it feels increasingly easy to reverse-engineer Apple's design philosophy:
- Identify a problem (I need to install apps; I need a heartrate monitor; I want to draw on my Mac)
- Design a best-path solution (What if there was an app for that? What if all your vitals were monitored? What if drawing was tactile?)
- Take that solution and engineer it into an expensive auxiliary product (App Store/Developer Program; Apple Watch; Apple Pencil/iPad)
- Deny competitors market access specifically so they can't fix self-imposed limitations (Still Apple refuses to sign benign apps; Apple Health is all-or-nothing without Apple Watch, competitors are scary and can't be trusted; touchscreen Macs are "impossible" and Apple Pencil can only be made by licensing our tech)
Maybe I'm being too creative and optimistic, but are there not thousands of people on this site that would readily give up their Mac for an iPad with decent Linux support? The only person stopping people from having their cake and eating it too is Apple. And you know it's not because the iPad is in some way different from the Macbook and shouldn't have an open bootloader. It's because that would stop people from buying Macs. For the love of God, I hate Steve Jobs like the devil but I would probably go get a used iPad Pro if Apple announced they were publishing Linux drivers for it.
You have drunk the Youtuber Kool-Aid way too much. Also, quit the Apple superiority complexe.
There are plenty of professional illustrators using tools other than iPad Pros, in fact most serious ones are still using Wacoms and the likes as you mentioned.
The Surfaces devices and the likes are just as competent as iPads (if not more) they just don't have the same halo effect and there are people like you spitting a lot of bullshit to keep the superiority complexe alive.
Apple would like people to see the iPad Pro as the only good illustration tool, but the truth is, considering the price and software support it's actually not a great one.
Since a "real" computer is going to be needed for work before delivery, if you don't need the extreme mobility, it's pretty stupid to buy an iPad instead of a traditional drawing surface.
But it doesn't matter, since Apple doesn't sell their devices to rational people, it's all about emotional marketing so whatever...
