The next Apple TV will be a television set, not a set-top box, and Apple is gearing to release it in the first or second quarter of 2012, according to DigiTimes.

In the doldrums between rumor-mongering about Apple's iPhones and iPads, about the company's plans for Apple TV is heating up. The latestApple is revving up its supply chain in order to deliver components for next-generation television products due out in the second or third quarter of 2012, DigiTimes reported Tuesday.

Apple is instructing components suppliers to have parts ready for next-generation Apple TVs in the first quarter of next year, according to the Taiwan-based tech journal. The next foray into television for Cupertino will not be a set-top box like but rather a full-blown TV set, DigiTimes reported, citing unnamed industry sources.

The company is supposedly planning a 32-inch version and a 37-inch version of the rumored Apple TV set.

Adding to the intrigue are reports from South Korean media that Samsung began producing chips for next-generation Apple TVs back in November, while Sharp is reportedly supplying the displays for the units.

Earlier had Apple planning to build television functionality right into its next-generation iMac computers. The company will be turning its mainstream desktop Macs "into a bridge to a full-fledged television business," according to a research note from Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair that made the rounds in early December.

And in Tuesday's report, DigiTimes cited seemingly contradictory tips from other industry sources that Apple is in fact planning another set-top box for its 2012 update of Apple TV.

Meanwhile, it was reported in November that CBS to provide Apple with content for Apple TV. CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves told analysts that the company was pitched by Apple to join Apple TV, and turned it down based on the lack of an upfront commitment.

Apple observers have been monitoring Apple TV talk at least in part because in the interviews that Walter Isaacson turned into a best-selling biography of the late Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder that the company thinks it has a path to success in the TV business.

Saying that he had "cracked" the secret to building a successful Apple TV set, Jobs told Isaacson, "It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine."

The biographer writes that Jobs described an integrated TV that would sync seamlessly with all Apple devices and iCloud, Apple's new consumer cloud serviceand it would supposedly make complicated remotes for disc players and cable boxes a thing of the past.

Mark Hachman contributed to this report.