My 4s when turned on just shows itunes icon against a black screen

This is for my dad. He recently completed the latest update on his 4s and his screen now when turned on is black apart from at the bottom the icon to connect the phone to the USB cable and the iTunes icon with an arrow between the two (meaning connect to iTunes a guess). I connected to my macbook and tried to restore but i still get the same icons and the phone is inoperable. Any thoughts?