AndEngine uses a simple abstraction layer above the Android user input handlers. We are going to use the touchscreen and the accelerometer, but it is of course possible to use any other sensors that are not implemented in AndEngine by directly calling the Android SDK methods.
Let's start with the touchscreen, because it's the most common way of getting user input in smartphones and tablets. The Android system is handling the touchscreen itself and it is firing touch events. These touch events are caught and processed by AndEngine. We are going to handle them using event listeners.